Flights of fancy

Is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? Yes! Is it a balloon? Um. Notsure about that one. It's certainly hovering above the ground butthere are no signs of a basket and a burner beneath its slickundercarriage.

Don Cameron, the man who helped engineer this amazing creationinto existence, describes it as an "inflatable sculpture" whichnicely ties together the two strands of art and design involved inthe project.

The jet plane stitched into existence at Cameron's Bedminsterfactory is the brainchild of New York artist Aleksandra Mir.

Despite the fact that she has a surname more suited to thecreation of a space station than a jet, it was a train journeybetween London and Bristol which prompted Mir to begin thinking aboutjet aircraft.

"I saw several back-lit planes at a distance, " she said,"appearing one by one, seemingly suspended, completely still in thesky but obviously in the process of landing.

"They made me think about physics, illusions, places, non-places,transitions, travel, tourist cultures, ballooning . . . I could talkabout all of that while simultaneously furthering the proud traditionof women in aviation." An artistic vision is, however, a wonderfulidea in the mind, but rather more complicated to execute in reality.

The problem for Cameron Balloons, whom Mir chose to involveherself with after discovering they were among the world's leadingballoon manufacturers, was to create a shape which would look like aplane from the outside, but would be supported only by gas and air,not metal.

Floppy wings and saggy tail fins were out of the question. Thesculpture had to remain consistent with the artist's vision ofsomething sleek, beautiful and aerodynamic.

"We had to make a generic plane, one that wouldn't be obviouslymodelled on a particular manufacturer, " says Hannah Cameron, incharge of marketing at Cameron Balloons.

"We used different features from different aircraft; for examplethe nose looks like a Boeing's, but we put in a very sleek, verysimple "go-faster" stripe down the fuselage where you might expect tosee a bright, colourful one on the real thing." "One of the aims ofthe project was to make the plane look like it is a few seconds fromtouchdown, " said Don.

"However, we decided to leave the wheels out, for aestheticreasons.

"Aleksandra had a few drawings on paper and a few thoughts aboutwhat she wanted and how it could be exhibited.

"She just phoned up out of the blue after having done someinternet surveys, and finding out that we'd built all sorts ofstrange things." The 68ft fuselage is made of densely woven fabricand filled with 100 cubic metres of helium.

The tail and wings are inflated with cold air, and this ismaintained by small fans running constantly. In all, 12 weeks werespent making the sculpture but at least two years went into itsplanning.

All told, it's somewhat smaller than most airliners but no lessspectacular, and at just 85kg it weighs 500 times less than just onewing of a Boeing 747-400. Even so, it's not going to be taking anypassengers. As a "balloon" its the wrong shape to take off verticallyand, as Don wryly observes, air traffic controllers would go into aspin if they spotted it in the sky.

Nor is it likely to be seen around Bristol in the near future. Itsinaugural inflation was at Compton Verney, in Warwickshire, and it'snext port of call will be Switzerland.

However, Cameron Balloons has made a special request to the artistthat the balloon returns to where it was made.

"We'd love to see it in Bristol again one day, " said Hannah, "andwe hope that one of the arts centres or galleries may have the spaceto host it.

"It would be lovely for people in Bristol to see it, because it'sdefinitely one of the strangest things we've ever made!"