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Make Your Own Cluster Balloon

Posted by michael on from the we-disclaim-all-responsibility dept.

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "'Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?' John Ninomiya does exactly that using 50-150 four-seven foot diameter balloons filled with helium ... and sealed with tape (duct?) and cable ties. Folks may recall the lawn chair man who floated up to 16,000 feet, but John takes this to a whole new level and his site has some wild pictures ... and includes the comment 'Kids, don't try this at home!'"

11 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. More information... by WalterGR · · Score: 5, Informative

    The lawn-chair man sounded like a hoax to me, but snopes.com (which we all know is the final word in urban legends) claims it's true!

    My favorite part:

    As Larry and his lawnchair drifted into the approach path to Long Beach Municipal Airport, perplexed pilots from two passing Delta and TWA airliners alerted air traffic controllers about what appeared to be an unprotected man floating through the sky in a chair.

    --
    The Online Slang Dictionary
    1. Re:More information... by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes. FAR 91.113, "Right-of-way rules: Except water operations," subsection (d)(1): "(1) A balloon has the right-of-way over any other category of aircraft." Generally, the craft that is hardest to maneuver has the right-of-way.

  2. Please use these Mirrors by TheMysteriousFuture · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please use one of the following mirrors:

    http://www.clusterballoon.org.nyud.net:8090/intro/ intro.html coral cache

    http://mirrordot.org/stories/be656bccec5ae60c9862f 9f692d3cdf2/index.html Mirror Dot

    --
    .sig
  3. Mythbusters on helium balloons... by outofservice · · Score: 3, Informative
    The Mythbusters (Discovery Channel) did a segment on what it takes to get liftoff from helium balloons.

    From http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/epis ode/episode_06.html:

    So, this guy named Larry Walters attached something like 45 weather balloons to this lawn chair. One of the tethers broke on the unemployed truck driver's little invention, shooting him straight up into the air. Apparently he sailed to 16,000 feet, where he was spotted by airline pilots, eventually closing LAX airport. He was finally rescued by a helicopter after he floated out to sea. Is this popular Internet legend full of hot air? Will Jamie and Adam close LAX?


    They tried doing this, and let's just say it took a LOT of balloons to get a young girl even neutrally buoyant.
    1. Re:Mythbusters on helium balloons... by 1337+Twinkie · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed, it took them 3000+ baloons to levitate the little girl. Those ballons, hoever were of the average carnival variety. Also, at the time, they were testing the myth that a small child could be carried away by a large bouquet of carnival balloons, a la Mr. Bean.

      The Mysthbusters did a separate segment on "Lawnchair Lary" using large weather ballons. They also tested whether or not a pellet gun could be used to burst ballons to reduce altitude (as reported in the story). I know that they got the lawnchair off the ground (with adult pilot), but I don't remember the outcome of the pellet gun test.

  4. Re:What a waste... by cheese_wallet · · Score: 4, Informative

    "There is only so much left in the strategic reserves."

    There is enough helium in the US reserves to supply the states for 100 years, or the world for 10. I don't think this guy made a dent.

    http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis104/heliumup.html

  5. Re:What a waste... by bm17 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, it floats off into space. Where did you think it went? It's lighter than molecular O2 and N2. If you don't believe me, check the wikkipedia or google for "strategic helium reserve". I weld with the stuff and I breath the stuff when I dive shipwrecks with a closed-circuit rebreather. I have a vested interest in knowing.

  6. Official "Lawn Chair Pilot" site by mcrbids · · Score: 4, Informative

    Go here to get the full skinny on the REAL lawn chair pilot, complete with streaming audio, pictures, maps, the works.

    It was on Art Bell a few years ago....

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  7. Re:What a waste... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Since you seem incapable of looking it up yourself, I did it for you:

    Abundance

    Helium is the second most abundant element in the known universe after hydrogen and constitutes nearly a quarter of the mass of the universe. It is concentrated in the stars, where it is formed from hydrogen by the nuclear fusion of the proton-proton chain reaction and CNO cycle. According to the Big Bang model of the early development of the universe, the vast majority of helium was formed in the first three minutes after the Big Bang.

    However, the concentration of helium in the Earth's atmosphere is only 1 part in 200,000, largely because most helium in the Earth's atmosphere escapes into space due to its inertness and low mass. All considerable helium on Earth is a result of radioactive decay. The decay product is found in minerals of uranium and thorium, including cleveites, pitchblende, carnotite, monazite and beryl. There are also small amounts in mineral springs, volcanic gas and meteoric iron. The greatest concentrations on the planet are in natural gas, from which most commercial helium is derived. The principal source in the world is the natural gas wells of the American states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
  8. Re:Can not go too high by windows · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're only flying as high as about 20,000 feet at the most. The pressure up there is about 500 mb. Sea level pressure is approximately 1000 mb. Consider an experiment at the surface where we inflate a balloon in a 1000 mb environment. We then keep the same temperature, but drop the pressure to 500 mb. That means for the balloon to maintain equal pressure with its surroundings, it must double in volume. That means, since volume is a three dimensional quantity that the diameter must increase by the cube root of 2. The diameter is only 1.26 times what it was before. Even at 125 mb, the balloon would only be twice its previous size.

    The 300 mb level in the atmosphere is around 32,000 feet. That's higher than the peak of Mt. Everest. Unless you brought oxygen tanks along, you would almost certainly be unconscious at that pressure. And yet in our surface experiement, at 300 mb, the balloon would only have a diameter of 1.49 times its diameter at 1000 mb.

    And if your balloon is still intact at 300 mb and you're still conscious, you'd have more to worry about than your balloon bursting. You're likely to encounter some pretty strong winds at that altitude which might make steering a bit of a challenge.

    But unless you fill your balloon almost completely full at the surface, you'd likely be unconscious before you'd see your balloon burst.

  9. Re:What a waste... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Tell that to an analytical chemist who has his gas chromatograph explode because he has to run hydrogen instead of helium as the carrier gas. Sure, you get better resolution with hydrogen, but helium is safer. Add on to that the fact that in Europe, chemists collect and recycle their helium, one starts to appreciate the value only when there was a shortage. Ask any analytical chemist how their helium was rationed two summers ago- they'll remember it.

    Helium has utility in places where you'd never think about- heliarc welding, or any inert gas welding (TIG, MIG, etc.), for example. Welding aluminum isn't the same without it. Liquid fuel rocketry uses it to drive the fuel. It has innumerable cryogenic applications that are irreproducible with any other element. You can't grow silicon or germanium crystals without it, so kiss your computer chips and cell phones goodbye without it. The tests used to throw sizable chunks of foam into a Shuttle wing to simulate what happened to Columbia were done with a light gas gun- which uses helium to create a shock wave of sufficient velocity.

    Everyone thinks it's a big joke, a "strategic helium reserve." Truth be known, were it not for the eccentric and vast natural gas fields of west Texas that have very high concentrations of helium, we'd be up shit's creek without a pooper scooper on this one. Fact is, we can lord over other countries that require helium for their own purposes.

    Supplies are finite, and we're pissing it away on toy balloons. What a waste. Let 'em use hydrogen instead. Maybe they can do a Hindenburg. How's that for substituting for helium?