
Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video] - tommywilliams
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/oct/26/man-flies-over-south-africa-in-a-chair-tied-to-helium-balloons-video
======
jimmies
Launching high-altitude helium balloons has been the activity some friends and
I do for fun. Over the course of 2 years+ we've been doing this, we had over a
dozen of successful launches where we could retrieve the payload.

For kids, this is a great inspiration and educational opportunity, especially
for those who are interested in technology and programming. We used Arduinos
and Raspberry pis in many components of the payload, from the tracker to the
data logger. They get to program and control the behavior then test the
hard/software so I personally think it's a great way to hook them up with
computers and really understand them. This is one of those instances of "doing
crazy stuff" kids are interested in.

For adults, it involves many fun aspects too. Specifically for geeks, the best
feature is the optimization of weight, reliability, and features for the
payload. Some people did get crazy with party balloons that carry impossibly
light and efficient payloads that last for over a year with full tracking and
sensory information. It can get surprisingly technical when you want to
communicate with the payload reliably from the ground (over the radio wave).
You'd be baffled and outraged when it was reported that with all the amazing
things we could do, we didn't know peep about a missing airplane. The little
phone in our pocket knows and tracks every step we take, you'd think - what's
so hard about keeping communication with an object in the line of sight? I
think all we don't appreciate enough is how advanced and amazing our cellular
network is. When you have cellular communication, you have everything, the
economy of scale is real and it works. With (amateur) radio, it's a different
story: Many times we'd had flawless successes communicating with the payload,
sometimes we just couldn't do it for some mysterious reason with the same
equipment. I've grown to be much more sympathetic to people who have to work
with that vast amount of distance, space, and power envelop when it comes to
tracking some flying object on the sky, let alone on/under the sea.

As a side note, I can't imagine launching such a huge object such as yourself
tied to a cluster of balloons to the sky could be something the authority is
too fond of.

~~~
asfdsfggtfd
Are there any safety issues with this? Air traffic control? What if balloon
bursts and payload falls to earth.

What are the rules on launches?

~~~
jimmies
It will surely burst when it reaches about 100k ft. We attach a parachute to
the payload to make it descend gradually. Other than that, there is no control
over where it's going to land. However, because the payloads are small
styrofoam boxes, they don't pose a very serious danger in the rare case that
they land on roads. Flight predictors are really surprisingly good at
simulating where the payloads will land, so it's usually not a huge surprise.

We'd rather be safe than sorry. So far, nothing really bad has been reported
in the HAB community. It will leave a bad stint if something blows up on
someone's face.

Regarding authority, we often file a NOTAM-Notice to Airmen
([https://sites.google.com/a/mtlsd.net/citizen-
science/ib1/not...](https://sites.google.com/a/mtlsd.net/citizen-
science/ib1/notam)).

------
royale93
The original is Larry Walters, of course.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Indeed. I am always amazed that they don't pass out when they cross 15,000'.

~~~
abcd_f
Who are "they" exactly?

~~~
icebraining
I assume they are "the people who makes these flights".

~~~
eps
Well, smarty pants, who are these numerous persons who flew in their lawn
chairs strapped to helium balloons to 15K feet? There must be heaps of them
since they manage to keep ChuckMcM in a state of constant amazement.

~~~
ChuckMcM
If you followed the Wikipedia link there were 5 imitators listed, and the
current story makes 6. These are the ones that got enough coverage to warrant
an entry. I know personally an EMT who responded to a call of one person who
tried this over Lake Tahoe and "crashed" into the lake, but it wasn't in the
papers or in the Wikipedia article.

~~~
eps
And only two reached 15K altitude, so your original comment rings hollow as
there's basically no basis for being "always amazed" at this fact.

~~~
ChuckMcM
So do you have a problem with me or with the grammar? If its me my email is in
my profile and I'm always ready to listen to feedback.

If its the grammar, my amazement comes from not one story of someone trying
this stunt including extra oxygen. Many of the stories include the notion of a
pellet gun to shoot individual balloons for altitude control. That sets up an
additional failure mode where you pass out from lack of oxygen before you can
shoot a balloon. That people fail to consider and plan for the failure modes
of this stunt _is_ always amazing to me.

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fauria
I know that man, he's Tom Morgan, founder of a company called The
Adventurists.

They are probably best known for organizing the Mongol Rally and the Rickshaw
Run, among other charity rallies.

I participated in the Mongol Rally 2009 and for me was the experience of a
lifetime.

This is their website if you are interested in learning more about them:
[https://www.theadventurists.com](https://www.theadventurists.com)

~~~
Fuddh
I participated this summer and I would agree - it’s an amazing experience. The
fact that the Adventurists still have a very personal approach with everyone
taking part even though there were over 300 teams this summer is testament to
how cool those guys are!

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nhoven
How does he safely maintain altitude? The helium balloons will expand as he
rises (due to the lower pressure at higher altitudes), eventually popping.
It's how weather balloons descend. Is he counting on a slow descent after some
initial fraction of the balloons pop? That's quite a bet.

------
markvdb
I don't want to be a party pooper, but...

Helium is scarce enough to stop using it for this kind of purposes.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24903034](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24903034)

~~~
sparkzilla
Crisis averted: [https://www.livescience.com/60607-helium-reserve-
discovered-...](https://www.livescience.com/60607-helium-reserve-discovered-
in-tanzania-photos.html)

~~~
amelius
Sounds like Tanzania soon has a monopoly position.

------
baldfat
this isn't inspired by the movie "Up." July 2, 1982 Larry Walters tied his
lawn chair to balloons and carried an air pistol to shoot balloons to control
the amount of lift.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)

When he landed his quote to the press before his arrest was:

"It was something I had to do. I had this dream for twenty years, and if I
hadn't done it, I think I would have ended up in the funny farm."

This is called Cluster Ballooning:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_ballooning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_ballooning)

Guinness Book of World Records even has a category. I told my Dad I wanted to
do it and he almost grounded me right then and there.

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fiatjaf
In 2008 a brazilian priest did the same in Santa Catarina. No one has ever saw
him again after the launch.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelir_Ant%C3%B4nio_de_Carli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelir_Ant%C3%B4nio_de_Carli)

~~~
veidr
Well, not to get too macabre, but people eventually did see (part of) his
_body_ , found floating in the ocean a few months later.

~~~
dogruck
Also don’t want to mock the dead, but this note made me shake my head:

> His training for the stunt included jungle survival and mountain climbing
> courses, but apparently did not include instruction on use of his GPS - in a
> telephone call he made during the flight, he stated that if someone could
> just explain how to use his GPS he could relay his position to rescuers.

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doxcf434
What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
andremat
Well, a Brazilian priest attempted a similar feat in 2008[1]. He won the 2008
Darwin Award for it [2].

[1] [https://gizmodo.com/5022283/sad-ending-flying-priest-
found-d...](https://gizmodo.com/5022283/sad-ending-flying-priest-found-dead-
in-the-atlantic-god-positioning-system-still-missing)

[2]
[http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html](http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html)

~~~
aaron695
> Darwin Award

Making fun of people dying. Fucking sick stuff.

It's also logically crap. Often it's people (as in this case) doing things
outside the normal. Things as hackers we should celebrate.

It's also often people in extreme poverty just trying to make a living, aka
the fucking sick part that we as rich educated people make fun of cause we
don't have to do dirty things like recycle metal from unexploded ordnances
cause rich.

~~~
knodi123
Hey, tell me about it. There was a tragic accident at my school, when a
structure collapsed and killed several students, because it had insufficient
engineering oversight. But, eh, Darwin Awards had to make a joke, so they
collectively gave it to all the victims, who were getting up at the crack of
dawn to volunteer on a group project, and following all the safety rules they
were given.

~~~
seszett
That's weird because it directly contradicts most rules of Darwin Awards, that
the people must be mature (well I don't know what kind of school it was), that
they must be the ones responsible for their death (from what you say, the
engineering is what killed students later) and that it must be because of
"extraordinary misjudgment" on the part of the people both responsible and
victims (who are supposed to be the same).

Can you link to your story on their website in order to contact them and
withdraw the award since it breaks the rules?

~~~
knodi123
I dug into it a bit further, and apparently the story is that the Darwin
Awards used to be more crowd-sourced, but as a direct result of the incident
I'm referring to, they instituted heavy moderation and apologized for any
distress caused by their seeming approval of a tasteless article. So it's a
little more forgivable than I realized. My opinion gelled back when the story
was still in progress, but I didn't hear about the conclusion.

If you want to read the details, just google "aggie bonfire", or "darwin award
aggie bonfire".

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pzivkovic
I so want to do this :)

~~~
Keyframe
Do it then!

