105 balloons put lawn chair pilot in air - Yahoo! News



Yeah!



A somewhat sad ending, though:

Aw.

But what a ride!

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“I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that a universe proves a God” ~Voltaire

And what about the part detailing the black FAA sedan heading towards his home with a fine and possibly an arrest warrent? Or did he actually have permission?

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Looks like fun. I've also seen a man who attaches small weather balloons to a parachute harness and makes flights. Helium isn't cheap, though. IIRC, each such flight cost well over $1000. Still, it looks like a beautiful ride. It also looks like Mr. Couch did his homework and conducted a pretty well thought out flight.

Sounds like fun, but I wonder how bullet-proof his setup was? It says he had a parachute, which is of minimal value unless he's trained to use it. Wish there were more details like the altitude of his flight, pictures of his rig, whether or not he had permission, etc.

That going into clouds bit is very dangerous. Certainly the big-sky-small-bullet factor helps, but not being visible to other "craft" is a recipe for disaster.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

But not landing...who would have thought the remaining balloons would have gone back up when almost all of the weight were lifted.

Probably should have shot the rest of the balloons before leaving the chair.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

After all of those hours in the lawn chair, he may have been in a hurry to do some ballast dumping of his own. He may also have just been tired enough to make a simple mistake.

My question is what is the lifting capacity of helium? Does a pound of helium have the lift potential to lift a pound of human (or whatever)? Or what is the ratio required?

That's one of the reasons I asked about his rig and altitude. Nine hours aloft must have been a grind to begin with. Add complicating factors like a jerry-rigged system & possibly very little experience; little things can turn into big problems in a hurry.

I'm checking with the jump community to see if anybody knows more about this.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Yeah...like sudden nasty downdrafts, which have been known to slam airliners down to the ground.

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“I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that a universe proves a God” ~Voltaire

I don't think those really work on balloons that well

Well, a given volume of air weighs ~ 7 times that of the same volume of helium, assuming the pressures are equal, or a 6 to 1 lift ratio. So to a first approximation, you'd need only 16 kg of helium to lift 100 kg of a large man.

Of course, this ignores
a) the fact that the helium in the balloons is surely at a higher pressure that the surrounding air, and that ratio cuts into the lift ratio. (So if the balloon is 2X the pressure of the air, then the air/helium mass ratio is 3.5:1 instead of 7:1, and you'd need 40 kg of helium to lift a 100 kg man.

b) the weight of the balloon material, the chair, and other paraphenalia

We do, after all, have previous evidence that it's an illegal activity!

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

We do, after all, have previous evidence that it's an illegal activity!
The original weather-balloonist, himself. Yes.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

The original flight took place in very crowded airspace (Los Angeles). This flight might be perfectly legal. The balloon rig would probably be considered an ultralight, so no license would be required. If he didn't violate restricted or controlled airspace (odds are he didn't), then the FAA might not have any problem with it.

Here's some info from US cluster balloon pilot John Ninomiya.

My helium cluster balloons have been flown legally under Part 103, the part of the Federal Aviation Regulations governing "ultralight vehicles" such as hang-gliders, paragliders and ultralight airplanes. To remain legal under Part 103, my flights must avoid "congested areas" and the airspace controlled by airports or ATC (Class A, B, C, D and certain parts of class E). My flight to 21,400 feet was done with permission of Los Angeles Center ATC, and required me to carry an aircraft radio and transponder.

My cluster balloons have ranged between 7,000 and 9,000 cubic feet in volume. The balloons I currently use are latex balloons, ranging in size from five to eight feet. The balloons are sealed with masking tape and cable ties, and are secured with nylon twine to carabiners in groups of three to six, depending on the size of the balloons. The carabiners are attached to long webbing straps that attach to the harness I wear. The webbing straps are of different heights to hold the balloons in tiers; this allows me to cut away the top layer of balloons without risk of tangling, which would be necessary to avoid being dragged in a high-wind landing. The harness I wear was designed for paragliding, and includes an integral reserve parachute and a padded back protector. I carry water ballast in two-gallon bladders designed for camping use.

I was wondering that... Am I right in thinking that the airliner scenerio is a result of the downdraft causing a loss of lift? The balloons will always have lift.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

If the balloon is in neutral buoyancy, it will move down with a downdraft just as it moves sideways with the wind.

Near the ground, the outflow from a downburst would jerk the balloon sideways. With an airplane, this same outflow can cause loss of lift by creating a sudden tailwind. The plane's inertia keeps it from following the changing wind instantly.

A microburst associated with a thunderstorm is a very high speed of downward moving air. If an airliner gets caught in one while near the ground, it could crash. It isn't so much a loss of lift as insufficient lift to overcome the downward velocity of the microburst. Fortunately, detection technology and pilot training makes this kind of accident quite rare. A balloon caught in a microburst would be in big trouble.

Wind shear is a sudden change in wind velocity. Suppose you're flying into a 25 knot headwind while on approach. If the wind velocity suddenly decreases or changes direction, you can have a significant loss of lift. In a piston powered plane like mine, you can cob the throttle and adjust or go around fairly easily (although your heart rate is likely to increase). Jet engines take longer to increase power. Once again, detection technology and pilot training makes this kind of accident quite rare today. Since a balloon drifts with the wind, wind sheer probably wouldn't be as big of an issue unless it caused the pilot to miss his intended landing spot.

I would have thought the recovery of the airplane from it's downward momentum would have been a big factor (among those you mention).

At the same thought, I would have thought the balloon's momentum would be minimal (at least compared to the direct "wind" effect), and danger buffered by the wind having more of an outward movement as you get closer to the ground.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Think of a bug flying down a highway. A car comes along. The front end of the car deflects the airflow upwards but the odds are the bug will still hit the windshield.

If the balloon is caught in a strong downdraft, it will have inertia in the downward direction. The change in wind direction when the downdraft hits the ground may not be enough to overcome the balloon's inertia. The results are the same as with the bug - splat.