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| Q: |
Why do you see the explosion before hearing it? |
| A: |
Sound travels at 742 miles per hour, but light travels 670,616,625.6 miles per hour. |
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| Q: |
How are the colors made? |
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Master pyrotechnicians build shells with bright burning metallic salts, which may be intensified by adding chlorine compounds. The salts are tightly packed into balls called stars, and placed inside the shell. The colors are: green / Barium Nitrate; blue / Cooper Salts and Chlorine; red / Strontium Nitrate; amber & orange / Charcoal & Carbon; white / Magnesium & Aluminum; and yellow / Sodium Salts. |
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| Q: |
How are the booms, bangs, hums and whistles made? |
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Salutes, made with titanium, produce the concussion booms at the end of a show. Smaller salutes made of flash powder or a titanium mixture produce a flash and bang. Whistles are tubes that fly across the sky making shrieks and whistles. Hammers spin and scream. |
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| Q: |
How big are the shells and how high so they go? |
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Three inches to twelve inches diameter, or the size of a tennis ball to a basketball. They weigh from six ounces to twelve pounds and fly as high as 100 to 1,500 feet |
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| Q: |
What is the most popular shell design? |
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Chrysanthemums & Peonies are popular. Weeping Willows have extra charcoal and burn an amber color, with a long lasting descent. Strobes are clusters of flashing silvery lights that drift slowly to the ground. |
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| Q: |
How long is the typical fireworks show? |
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20 minutes, but shows range from 5 to 35 minutes. |
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| Q: |
Which is the biggest and oldest fireworks company in the USA? |
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78 year-old George Zambelli and his family, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, are among the oldest and largest fireworks manufactures in the US. Over 100 years ago, his father, Antonio moved here from Italy with closely guarded fireworks formulas, handwritten in a small black book. George grew the family business, which employs three of his adult children, two son-in-laws, 50 year-round employees and hundreds of seasonal workers in Colorado, Maryland, New England, California and Florida. The Zambelli family produced more than 1,800 shows on July 4th, including some of the most elaborate displays in the nation: Denver, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Mount Rushmore, St. Louis and Baltimore. They will light up the skies on New Years Eve, in such cities as; Boston, New York, Naples, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Marina Del Ray, to name a few.
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