Experimental Broom Development

Broom Development

Broom Equipment Development

Broom Development

Requirements

The search for the ideal broom material is as old as the modern racing brooms. For the first rediscoverers of the flying broomstick, the most important qualtiy of both, handle and twigs was a light weight construction. Therfore, they prefered ash and spruce. With the spellset's growing importance and abilities, the wood's magical quality moved to the limelight. And so did the spells, the sphere of their activity and their magical interrelations.

New facilities for enchanted brooms are invented constantly all over the world. Indeed, a handful of craftshops specialize in developing new broom models and improving brooms already on the market. They send their marketizing application to the iBa M&A (Marketability & Testing department of the International Broomriding Association) or to the AIDBV (Association International du Dévelopment du Balay Volant) in order to get approval for the introduction of new products to the market.

According to the world's broomriding organisations, new broom models must fulfill the following requirements:

  • The average height and speed achieved are as good as or better than the quality of the existing brooms on the market.
  • The same invisibility and comfort spell stability as the average broom on the market possesses is guaranteed.
  • A good part (roughly 60-70%) of the iBa / AIDBV certificated recent inventions are implemented. Non tested spell combinations need a special iBa / AIDBV Certification of Serious Testing (quality mark CST).
  • No forbidden, dangerous or suspect spell or object is part of it.
  • The broomriding ability level required by the average future user is clearly noted in the broom's covering leaflet.
  • International roaming is technically possible within all the iBa and/or AIDBV countries.
  • The price is justified by the technical standard (fairness of competition conditions).
  

Material Studies

The discussion, which wood will provide the best broom, began a century ago. Can broomriders use the protective forces of holly? The sheltering powers of birch or willow? The inner spiritual strength of oak? The storm-sheltering and harmony generating forces of ash? Yes, they can. And for several decades, broommaker's workshops perfected their skills to combine the most effective woods with the most effective spells. It is still possible to find such individual pieces on the market.

But then, a generation of new and better focussed spells surpassed every wood's magical ability. The broom's material quickly became less important compared to the perfectness of the spells, now used in a set.

  

Today, the most commonly used handles are ash, fir or oak, while hazle or cypress twigs bound to one end of the handle for the faggot.

Some people, howeveer, swear by choosing the wood of their brooms according to their Celtic Astrology.

Tree Nurseries
(Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, The Lebanon)

The idea of tree nurseries is to cultivate the ideal ideal wood instead of collecting it. Tree nurseries are as old as modern broomstick riding. Some of them are at the moment developping an all-in-one-piece broom, where the twigs are either shoots of the same wood or grafted onto the handle.

Tree nurseries in different countries prefer different woods. Poland for instance prefers the fast growing willows or birches Estonia and Lithuania are convinced that their poplars guarantee the better maintenance in the air. In Portugal, there is a tradition to use daughters of the ancient pine trees, whereas in the Lebanon, nobody can be convinced that there is another wood for a broom than the light and curse-resistant cedar.

The tree nurseries may be only at a starting point to a new generation of naturally recycled and early enchanted brooms.

  • they make it possible to enchant the wood progressively from the nut. The difficult and time consuming search for the ideal tree as well as the time for the enchantment is relinquished.
  • broom-recycling is possible with nursed brooms. Tree nurseries are planting old and broken enchanted brooms, let them regrow and harvest the pre-enchanted raw material for a new broom.
  • there are ideas to cultivat enchanted flying trees - yes, you've read perfectly right, flying TREEs - for multiple person transport. The branches which must be cut off regularly so that the bundle grows in the ideal shape are stored and are used for further repairs.
  

a typical estonian tree nursery
a typical estonian tree nursery with the glittery young spellset glowing in the evening sun

Broom Tying and Flying Carpets: Bradfort (GB)

As we read in the Edinburgh fragment Crookshanks, experiments with the combination of energy fields of bewitched brooms go back as far as the mid 1980s in Scottland, perhaps even before, although we have no other written testimony of such.

Tying two bewitched brooms under certain, repeatable circumstances enlarges the energy fields of each broom. Interferences of magical materials strengthen these effects, as well as the tying material which is ideally carpet thread from Turkey, Iraq or Iran. As you see in the image at the right, the interfering spells seem to float and form a common wave-like spellset. Additional spells, as a British-Pakistani cooperation group in Bradfort discovered in the course of their experiments, fill the waves and make the tied broom group like a raft flying vehicle able to transport several people at once.

Different woods and different broom models cause different interference patterns and therefore need other additional spells. Flap-n-Ups for instance are impossible to tie, whereas Storks, especially popplar or olive tree Storks, are ideal for the purpose. Three tied popplar Storks can transport up to 10 persons luggage inclusive and three tied olive tree brooms are are the ideal foundation for a comfortable children's room.

  


spellset-interferences of tied brooms

Object Bewitchment and Free Flying
Calatin and Babed MacFenian (Britain)

Im the British Channel islands, approaches to fly with shrunken broom, a reduced besom (Besom4U) or even without are pushed ahead. The principle is simple: combinating levitation techniques with broomriding.

Calatin MacFenian, the youngest son of the famous broom acrobat Abarta, never succeded in joining his father's broom acrobating group. Instead, he left his family at young age and earned his living as a broom riding teacher, roaming from the north to the south of Great Britain. On the Isle of Wight, he met his wife Babed, a local celebrity known for her levitating demonstrations.

They became partners in life and in experimentation, and since 1990, they have been known for their approaches to flying with shrunken brooms and even without broom. Calatin is riding minuscule brooms and other bewitched objects like bicycles, kick-boards, chairs or toy furniture, while Babed works on lengthening the levitation sittings and being able to steer while levitating, which means to surnount the trance.

Calatin and Babed's final idea is to be able to leave the object behind and ride directly in the air, or on an air cushion. As Calatin said in an interview:

"It's all in our head. We THINK we need a broom in order to fly, that's why we can't do it without. We don't enable our immagination to fly straight away, without any objects. But look at our minuscule brooms and objects. Do you really believe that they hold us up in the air AERODYNAMICALLY? They certainly don't. They're just crutches for our lack of confidence. Having surpassed this insecurity once, we'll be able to leave the crutches behind forever."

We await that moment. It will be a turning point in the evolution of mankind!

  

a swiss free flyer's memories

Bewitched Garments as Energy Source
Robert de l'Ombre (France)

While Calatin and Babed MacFenian experiment with bewitching minuscule objects, Robert De l'Ombre, a French AIDBV magician living near Bordeaux, is experimenting with bewitched coats and other garments. As he states:

"We will always wear garments when flying in the air. They protect us from visibility, cold, rain and injuries. Why should they not replace the broom as well?"

Robert De l'Ombre experiments also with inserting a piece of enchanted wood into a garment, representing the broom handle as well as the twigs stabilizing the flyer's maintenance in the air.

Robert De l'Ombre's idea is astonishing simple, but as he has never presented any steps of his research in official iBa meetings, we don't have any clue how completely it has been realized. We know, however, that our best broomriding garments come from house manufacturers in the region between Bordeaux and Cahors in Southern France.

    

Dealing with Cold, Wind and Rain
Angelus Aegean (Greece)

Angelus Aegean, a young student of mechanical engeneering, graduated 1991 about flying objects at Saloniki Technical University. In his spare time, he bewitched his broom with a shell of spells in search of better aerodynamic conditions and invented an aerodynamic coat (presented at the 1994 International Broomriding Association in Berlin), an aerodynamic tent (iBa 1997) and finally his Aerodynamic Shell (iBa 1999), which was an immediate success and made him popular all over the whole wizarding world.

Looking back to his first steps to broomriding, Angelus Aegean said at the 1999 iBa:

"My first steps in broomriding changed my outlook on the element air. From my native Ionian Islands, where nature is dormant part of the year and restained by a constantly temperate climate the rest, I fled on holidays to Alpine Switzerland, where I stepped into a world of harsh winds and sudden storms, able to destroy a whole village in seconds. "These winds are energy one must use", I thought as the child of a civil engineer's family, and since my 18th birthday I have been looking for ways not only to conquer the winds, but to make them be the broomrider's friend and source of energy.

Several months apprenticeship in an Antandroy family on Madagascar taught me enough about professional wizardry that I was able to develop my own magical products."

Angelus Aegean's Aerodynamic Shell (AAAS) was supposed to be THE INVENTION of the year 1999. But he's not resting on his success. Far from it! His ideas to improve the AAAS seem to explode:

  • Warming up AAAS's interior: adding his experience from the aerodynamic tent, which was made of a synthetic fibre conjured up by a special spell, to the AAAS, which is pure magic.
  • Making AAAS water repellant: one of Angelus Aegean's pupils spent a year as an apprentice in a garment manufacturer in Southern France. He learned there the basic techniques of water repellant magical garments
  • Make AAAS's interior invisible: combining an invisibility cloak with an invisibility talisman: a talisman from invisibility fibres, stuck to the AAAS, will extend its reach to the whole shell.
  • Enlarging and shrimping the AAA's area to the wind during the flight

Today, a team of specialists are working at his factory: two co-developers, five fine-tuners of the spells, 8 serial bewitcher of the ordered prototype models, as well as a dozen testers. The AAASs you buy today are serially hand made and keep the effects of their spells for years.

Broom Equipment Development

BroomTronics (Denmark)

Combining witchcraft with electronics is the aim of a small but powerful and successful Danish company. Its vision is a multifunctional broom, whose "Smart Components" work not with electricity, but with psychic energy, i.e. with magic alone. This is necessary because electromagnetic and magic fields normally disturb each other.

The company's own fish shaped broom is suitable for any spell set from any developer.

Broom Tronics thus takes a first step towards the separation of broom model and spell set. A Broom Tronics Broom is to be sent to a professional broom enchanter. In fact, it's even possible to install Broom Tronics on a recycled Mistral or a Condensador base model and to install the Qasar's spellset - or another of the countless combinations. In short: the number of broom models is about to explode.

  
BroomTronic components added to a Multi Magic Wasp

Flying with Capacitor Energy (Argentina)

The three Argentine brothers, Piedro, Aldo and Enrico Felippi, developed El Condensador - a broom whose energy source is of electormagnetical origin instead of magical. It takes enough mind force just to steer a broom (especially in the rough argentinian Zonda winds), the brothers argue - you don't have to do the flying itself.

El Condensador's principle is simple. The electromagnetic field between two metal sheets is charged with electricity once, and remains powered for a long time (nearly infinitely with the right electrolytic medium in between) and thus can be used as an energy source. The sheets don't have to be flat. Arranged as concentric cylinders and filling nearly the whole length of the broom handle, they produce enough energy for at least 48 flying hours.

The electrolyte of a capacitor can be liquid, a paste or solid. A broom's electrolyte MUST be solid, for reasons of air stability. The Felippi's broom model, El Condensador, allows roaming across the endless Argentine primeval forests and quick stops at Felippi bars, where both the broom and the rider load new energy.

The brothers founded a company called Escobarraio, specializing in a mass production of their broom model and a chain of electricity station bars all around the AIDBV countries, where their customers plug in their brooms at the bar while sitting on them, have a drink and meet friends. Enrico is the man who runs this part of the business today, while Aldo is the engeneer manager and Piedro the sales and marketing manager of the factory.

  

Loki&Partners, Talismans For Every Use (USA)

Invisible broomriding is an excellent protection against witchcraft-hating people of every kind. But it also causes additional problems. Such as:

  1. how do other flying objects or animals manage to see you?
  2. what about airplanes?
  3. how can you see your broomriding partner(s) in paragliding, formation gliding, broomdancing, broom acrobatics or simply in team excursions?
  4. how can you see another broomrider early enough in order to avoid a collision?

Loki&Partners have specialized to developing Talismans For Every Use out of their own pure need as magical explorers. When the fund that paid for their mission ran out due to political problems, the team had to find an alternative source of income. The result of the team's endless crisis conference was to adapt their most commonly used and well-tested talismans to mass production and to sell them in broomrider's equipment shops.

A talisman is a magical object you usually wear on a chain around your neck. The talisman's magic, unlike the amulet's, is not only warding off (repelling), but also proactive (performing magic), such as healing, alerting, spellsending, cursing etc. The magic is in the object and therefore never expires.

Nor is a talisman updateable. New problems and new diseases require new talismans.

  

Loki & Partner's talisman set consist of:

Invisibility Talisman: makes the wearers invisible as long as he wears the talisman

Revisibility Talisman: takes off invisibility of objects at a certain distance

Collision-Alert Talisman: alerts the rider accoustically or optically if an invisible object at a certain distance moves towards you or if your movements may lead to a collision.

Telepathic Talisman Set: coordinates the movements of riders linked together by the same talisman set and allows them to communicate at a distance by telepathically transported accoustically amplified thoughts.

Small-Object-Repelling Amulet: repells every object smaller than 1 inch diameter from the wearer

Soft-Landing Amulet: ensures for your soft landing every time

For details or prices go to the Equipment Shop. Further objects are developed according to the team's need.