...inspired, do you think, by...
...the movie "Up"?
OK, OK, I'll get me coat :-D
US, Iraqi lawn chair balloonists blown out of sky
A pair of intrepid aerial adventurers aiming to fly from Bend, Oregon, to southwestern Montana in a tandem-seated lawn chair craft buoyed by 350 five-foot balloons had their dreams deferred when their aircraft came down in a thunderstorm 30 miles from liftoff, dumped them off, then sailed away on its own, destination unknown …
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 08:24 GMT TeeCee
Re: sad really
Easy.
Obviously the Bud would taste like shit, so I'd fill the balloons with it, get some mates round and see who could make the highest splat mark on the nearest wall.
Then we could play squeaky-voiced silly buggers for a bit with the helium, before going out for some real beer.
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Monday 23rd July 2012 20:44 GMT Marshalltown
Re: sad really
Anyone drinking a Bud in Bend would either out of their mind, or from Texas - or just maybe a college student on an athletic scholarship. Bend has microbreweries that make some of the best ales around, not to mention that Oregon is also the home to Henry Weinhards - good stuff, and that not that far south (at least as westerners understand distance) is Chico, California, and the Sierra Nevada brewery which turns out very fair suds, especially when compared to Bud.
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 05:19 GMT lawndart
says:
It could have been far worse.
The storm could have taken them up to a much higher altitude, pelted them with balloon busting hail and frozen and asphyxiated them before dumping them back to earth.
I remember a cautionary tale of some German glider pilots in the 1930's? who froze when caught in a storm.
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 09:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The Darwin awards needs to evolve to keep up
You mean you want to dumb down the Darwin awards so normal stupid people can win them too?
I am shocked and appalled. You belittle the achievements of previous winners. An "intense" landing under a cloud of balloons is hardly in the same ballpark as shotgunning your own wedding tackle off.
People like you wishy washy "everyone should get a prize" and "its not the winning that counts, its the taking part!" liberals make me sick.
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 08:04 GMT dotdavid
Oh come on
All you cynics moaning about FAA regulations and mental illness should take a step back and marvel that we still have people willing to do cool but dangerous things for fun.
Although they really should have come up with a way of quickly returning to Earth, and staying there, in the event of an unexpected thunderstorm or incoming jetliner. Keeping with the redneck theme, I would recommend a shotgun and a shedload of shells for balloon-bursting from the comfort of your chair.
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 11:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The merging of Iraqi and US flags?
Agreed. But it's Darwin Award material, isn't it?
Imagine in some unsewered Bagdhad slum, former small time thug now turned militia man Ali al-Bastad is out in the yard, cleaning his AK47, wishing the Yanks were still here to shoot at, wondering what to do between morning prayers and mid morning prayers. What to do today? What to do today? And then, in answer to his question, two loons drift into view, suspended by balloons in Uncle Sam's colours, floating invitingly above one of the most unstable, dangerous, heavily armed, lawless cities on the planet, hoping to promote peace and reconciliation.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 08:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The merging of Iraqi and US flags?
"The most unstable, dangerous, heavily armed, lawless city on the planet would be Detroit."
As a speaker at a conference I attended said, "Detroit has improved hugely, and my friend there says you wouldn't recognise it now. And he should know, because he's rear gunner on a UPS van"
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Tuesday 17th July 2012 19:44 GMT Brew
I was at the launch. Not exactly a lawn chair, it was an aluminum frame with water tank ballast below and substantial lawn chairs on top behind railings. Balancing that sophistication were the balloons and how they were inflated or overinflated. Between 5-10 popped on their own after being filled. Since the balloons expand as they go higher in altitude and popping balloons have been a problem on his previous flights and this one, score one for amateur flight. But the worst was an appalling lack of showmanship. Everyone knows, since the Wizard of Oz, that when one embarks on such a flight one stands up and addresses the crowd with stirring words of some kind, no such words here, just a bunch of milling around by the support crew and then they took off without a word. If you want true lawn chair inspiration see Danny Deckchair!
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Monday 23rd July 2012 16:35 GMT Brew
Correction
Although this subject has gone to static charge land I'd like to make a correction. The lawn chair apparatus was actually much more fragile than I described above. The problem was that here were so many ground crew around it you couldn't get a good view except as it was taking off. After reviewing the pictures we took it does indeed look very fragile. The ballast section with the lawn chair on top is made up of a few lengths of aluminum shaped into a rectangle, it hangs from a rectangle of 4 lengths of aluminum above, which hang from the balloons, there are no railings, the lawn chairs could indeed be called lawn chairs. Score two for amateur flight.
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