All things BALLOONing: what a sport!

I know now of one E.S. member who is a hot air balloonist.

I just wrote him a PM, excited, because I've always been fascinated by lighter than air, flight!

Did any of you others ever get a trial ride, at least, in a modern hot air balloon?

It's a-ma-zing!

Let me stop now and find a little video to fill time while others consider to add to this
thread of TOTAL FREEDOM. No Fear! KWYADAWYADI, is me motto!

Of course, that is why I crash my bike so often, ha ha!

they go up-uppeddy-up, they go down-own-edy down

[youtube]s4fVp-hEPOk[/youtube]






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Lighter than air flight has always intrigued me.

How about pedal powered dirigibles!

Remember Larry Walters, who in 1982, attained 16,000 feet in the maiden voyage of his lawn chair to which he'd attached 40 helium balloons.

Other balloonists have circumnavigated the the world.

For more about cluster balloons, just google cluster ballooning, and see an aquaintance of mine John Ninomiya. He's the one that got me going on clouhopper ballooning, ending up with buying and flying one. Johns crew cheif is a guy that was taught to fly by the same dude that taught me. Flight is great, but nothing compares to a balloon. It's just so kooky to take off, and have only a vague idea of where you will land. Nothing else in the sky does that.

Another historic figure worth checking out is Santos Dumont. To this day the french belive he was the first man to fly heavier than air in powered flight. The Wright bros were so secretive about it, that europe didn't belive it happened. Before he built the first european airplane, Santos did lots of fun stuff with balloons. He had a small balloon that he guided through paris on ropes to his favorite bar, and gave dinners on tables and chairs 8 feet tall to give the feeling of flying. Later, he single handedly invented the dirigible, later improved by Ferdinand von Zepplin who gave it the rigid frame to become a dirigible.

One of my favorite oft forgotten balloon facts is that the man who piloted the first hot air balloon in 1783, Pilotre de Rosier, later blew himself out of the sky in an exploding combination hot air and hydrogen balloon, becoming the first man to die ballooning. Centuries later, balloons would fly around the world nonstop using the same Rosier design balloon with one modification, helium.

Killer Keaton flick. The basket reminds me of my trainer balloon. After my student flying, and practice landings, my first basket was not airwothy anymore. The same thing was about to happen if it kept flying.

Here's a pic of me in the cloudhopper, the crew is helping me land it, on my first flight in it. Every flight in that thing scares the piss out of you, but it's fun as long as you have a good landing spot.

Helium, FTW.
[youtube]uidpl_UMlYo[/youtube]

Nice to see others take an interest in ballooning, I think it has been declining in terms of number of pilots nationally for awhile.

Dogman, what make is that, it looks like a Raven skirt. I like the artwork on your envelope. Also enjoy your posts here on the sphere.

silentflight is a reference to my cloudhopper.

I have a bike rack which fits on the back of it as well, so I can take a mountain bike along for a pedal-powered self-retrieve.

When I was a kid I wanted to try the lawnchair and helium balloon route, so I called up Larry Walters for advice. He said "don't do it, you'll kill yourself."

Flying a hopper at night is magical.

I call any altitude below treetop "dream altitude" you really get the sense of floating when near the ground.

The seats of most hoppers can rotate freely to aid in landing. Imagine rotating through 360 degrees and seeing nothing but sky and earth, it feels as though you have just disappeared. Money won't buy that one.

I could tell a story about bouncing off a cloud deck, but that might violate a few FARs.

The one time I got concerned was when a DC-10 on approach to MSP decided to swing past me about 500-1000 feet away. Equally awesome and frightening. I could hear the spreading vortices from his wingtips whipping through the air as they passed beneath me like a ghostly tornado. By the way, in open airspace a cloudhopper has the right of way over a 747. Would like to see that in the world of bikes and cars and trucks.

Santos Dumont rocked, and a pedal or electric dirigible is something I would love to try.

Scott

I seem to remember a Californian pilot who often flew alone with his cloudhopper and hichhiked back to the car. Mine was sewn by a guy from Phoenix Arizona, using indian pottery designs from a tribe that lived near my home. Being flown in Phoenix, he made it huge, so it's a 40,000 cubic foot envelope. When I saw that thing on sale on the internet I knew its true home was here in New Mexico. It's an aerostar design, and now sports a scoop, having fried the skirt pretty quickly. I had the same problem with my first balloon, a Raven RX7. Hated that narrow mouth. Personally, I find I still need 4 people to get that thing launched properly without torching some fabric. The bottom end is an old Thunder and Colt, and very cumbersome to get hooked into compared to a modern Cameron. I almost have to have a helper keep the burner going while I struggle with the parachute harness release fasteners. I flew my first Albq balloon fiesta in the cloudhopper, but since then I have been much happier to pilot there with 4 tanks of fuel aboard using my wifes Fantasy, a 90. Trying to land in Albq is harder every year, and having just 50 minuites of fuel didn't help. By the time the zebras let your go, you have less than 30 minuites before you need to land. At least the hopper lands nice, if you must, you can pull the red line at about 50 feet, and drop in like you just jumped off a roof into tiny little spots, and the top of the envelope will fall below a roof, not over it.

Not many pilots here in the EV world, and I must admit, if I hadn't blown so much money ballooning in the past, I wouldn't have gotten so interested in a cheap way to get to work. We may get the 90 annualed this winter and start flying again, we have mabye one year left in the fantasy envelope. I miss piloting fiesta soo much, but crewing the Darth Vader balloon will be nice. We got one day last year with them, as wannabees, and impressed the pilot enough to be invited back this year. Going to fiesta is a lot cheaper when you don't host a party for 12 crewpeople every day. Sometimes the food and booze cost a lot more than the rest of it. The fiesta crew got so big, we had to double the size of the truck so that got expensive too.

silentflight said:

Santos Dumont rocked, and a pedal or electric dirigible is something I would love to try.

Click to expand...

Yes, me too.......

S.D's autobiography is a fascinating read....

Not sure where to find a clip of it, but the comedian Gallager once built one, a pedal powered dirigible. Alas, without SD's experience with LTA craft, he nearly killed himself with it. Kinda funny actually, a guy who makes his living squashing vegetables with a sledgehammer decides to build an aircraft :lol: .
Flying LTA is very magical fun, AND deadly serious buisness at the same time. You can die real easy.

dogman said:

Not sure where to find a clip of it, but the comedian Gallager once built one, a pedal powered dirigible.

Click to expand...

http://home.teleport.com/~reedg/whitedwarf.html

Southampton University UK made one in the '80s.

Stephane Rousson's:
http://www.rousson.org/StephaneRousson_UK.html

Aeolus conceptual design:
http://airshipworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/aeolus-airship-concept.html

Nottingham University UK:
http://ibikeride.com/giant-pedal-powered-airship.html

http://www.dendronautics.com/USERIMAGES/d4-operation.pdf

I goofed and forgot that I had already posted that Booth item. Now it's in space number two above. Will erase it.

SAY, that helium balloon comes closest to the old balloons, and so close to that old technology.
They must be terribly costly and difficult to navigate compared against todays WHOOOSH and silence, propane-hot-air balloons,
which, themselves, are the direct "ascendants" of the Montgolfier's original paper mache balloon fired by "smoke";
they thought at that time that it was the smoke of a wet fire that made the buoyancy.

As a kid....well, another story for some other time.
Fun with home-made hot air balloons, kid style, 1930's style,
of hand cut gores of tissue paper, seams glued with home-made paste made
from cooked flour and water...and LIVE FLAME in the form of alcohol-soaked lamp wicking;

and you'd send your eight-footer up at twilight on a wet night, we hope,
and it would glow, visibly for miles away as it drifted until...the wicking burned out its fuel,
OR the whole shebang took LIGHT and...well, the instructional book I used made no mention of
"you should not do this in any populated area and even then, it had better be done just after a heavy rain
or you will burn Farmer Brown's barn to the ground".

Safety Last was the old-time byword.

Yet, in Lowes day, balloonists generated their own hydrogen and filled their raw-rubber-in-solvent-sealed silk envelopes,
and silk rope mesh (silk is light in weight and strong, too), and... I do not know of many or any old-day hydrogen balloon disasters,
but have not read too much of the history.

GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH will surely turn up a wealth of free to download, 1860's era books and articles about the Art of Flight.

source: http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2009/04/inflating-professo-lowes-balloon.html

This is another picture of Professor Lowe's work in the Civil War.
This photograph shows the activities associated with inflating his balloon.
The picture was taken in Virginia.

Click to expand...

The war was ending and the Balloon Corp disbanded;
Lowe used his last balloon to give rides to all comers, in NYC, in the year of 1866 (source, original news item from Scientific American).

That was it for him. He went on to do other great things, and never ballooned again.

"A capstan, reeling, let us rise. Horseflesh
winched us down again."

Reid Welch said:

. . .
As a kid....well, another story for some other time.
Fun with home-made hot air balloons, kid style, 1930's style,
of hand cut gores of tissue paper, seams glued with home-made paste made
from cooked flour and water...and LIVE FLAME in the form of alcohol-soaked lamp wicking;

Click to expand...

I remember Stanley Augustus Owsley launching dry cleaner bags powered by tea-light candles (?) from the Berkley Hills to announce a new batch of acid.

Zoot Katz said:

Reid Welch said:

. . .
As a kid....well, another story for some other time.
Fun with home-made hot air balloons, kid style, 1930's style,
of hand cut gores of tissue paper, seams glued with home-made paste made
from cooked flour and water...and LIVE FLAME in the form of alcohol-soaked lamp wicking;

Click to expand...

I remember Stanley Augustus Owsley launching dry cleaner bags powered by tea-light candles (?) from the Berkley Hills to announce a new batch of acid.

Click to expand...

Oh, yeah, I did that too in the middle sixties as a ten year old. We got those clear, thin plastic bags from the laundry,
made a lightweight hoop to hold the bottom open, fired them gently from the charcoal grille, and up they'd go some dozens of feet,

always, always, right into the nearest tree.

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We too being of the same era, remember comic book ads for x-ray glasses and fake groucho noses and
TOY HOT AIR BALLOON KITS, 2.95 for a four foot round, post paid, or 5.95 for a GIANT, like 12 foot oval red-white tissue balloon.
Those larger ones were ever so much better flyers. Went through several of them, as cutting gores by hand from the patterns given
in my dad's childhood book, was a lot of work and trouble. Still, we'd buy the ready-cut gore tissue kit, and make the flour paste,
and spend hours neatly gluing the gores together. The BIG balloon would carry quite a payload, but we did not much dare to send
those up with flaming wads of lamp wick. No, they were fired by the charcoal grill or makeshift burner, and retained enough heated air
to go hundreds of feet, and miles at a time. Launch in still air. Get on bike, CHASE balloon. Sometimes two miles! Half the time,
the balloon was retrievable.

My nasty brother had a trick all kids would do: the infamous Cigarette Fused Fire Cracker. Put that to a toy hot air balloon, even the
suit cover bag could and did serve, and have a candle to give it some extra "oomph", and up it would go in the still night,
and you'd see the glow of the mere candle,

and wait......................................five minutes.................FLASH...............report! Fun!
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Must relate the story someday, like right now

of how my dad, at his age of ten or so, nearly got busted for firing his and his brothers Bangsite Canon at
Miami's Goodyear Blimp. The pilots were sure somebody was SHOOTING a firearm at them! The cops were called. Inquiries made.
The Miami Herald was aghast! BIG STORY: Murderers may be trying to KILL our Blimp! Result:

P.B., the doctor, fixed things quietly. Without a bang, but with a whimper from the downcast boys,
INTO BISCAYNE BAY, was heaved that Bangsite Canon, where, today, it must muster now nothing more than cast iron rust.

Oh, boys and balloons and fires and...
...it was a time, back before home entertainment got so easy as to turn on a Playstation
and practice imitation murder on strangers across the internet. :lol: I don't like death-playing adrenaline games;
I predict early deaths for kids who are addicted to violent action video games: constant excitement hardens the arteries,
even in children. The process is natural and inevitable. Calm people live longest and best.