How One Man Flies Hundreds of Miles Using Balloons

imagine as a child you thought if you could just get enough healing balloons could you float away and we're normally told no that's not possible you're not going to be able to fly with healing balloons but i revisited that idea as an adult and i argued if one balloon provides some unit of lift why wouldn't we be able to scale that and that's what we're doing [Music] i'm flying my chair [Music] my name is trapp and i am a technical projects manager at a large it consulting firm as a day job but i have a unusual passion hobby which is to take helium balloons toy helium balloons and assemble them in massive clusters for manned flight these are balloons that were never intended to support manned flight but that's what we've caused them to do 17 100 still climbing that passion has carried me a loft on more than a dozen flights across as many years sometimes it's just me just my body in a tiny little harness sometimes we're flying bigger things i've flown houses what a thing to say i've flown houses two of them we were flying these toy helium balloons before the disney pixar film up but i will say this that the film up also inspired us now the idea of flying a house under toy helium balloons absolutely came from the disney pixar filming one of the things i love about flying these helium balloons is they have the capability for real expedition level flights what i'm talking about is flights of 23 000 feet in an open gondola carried only by helium balloons 13 000 feet as we cross the alps it varies from a small cluster couple dozen balloons to extraordinarily large towering clusters 365 of these massive balloons we've flown clusters for 10 hours 12 hours you know 14 hours the longest we've ever flown in a single flight 466 miles when i take off i don't know where i'm going to put down i'll select a safe place to land in flight but i'm flying hundreds of miles without knowing exactly where i'll land [Music] we're good we're down so it's a mix of art and science the art is the colorful cluster of healing balloons but the science is it is quite serious and i treat it seriously there's human life at stake my life and the lives of those i share the sky with and the lives of those under me hello how are you we work with the federal aviation administration in terms of getting the aircraft certified london this is gas balloon calling to activate my flight plan it took me about a year to go to flight school get a pilot's license and after about a year of tests and training and certifications we made our first flight using my standard office chair as my gondola for that flight when you're up there it's not just leisure and relaxation you're floating away you have moments of that but there's a lot more time spent thinking okay am i heading the right direction do i have any airspace or obstacles in front of me okay we're climbing 120 right at 18 000 feet so it's trying to get this guy to a zero pressure configuration you have to fly the aircraft if i'm climbing and i need to initiate a descent i need to vent helium the balloons are bio-degradable so we can also cut the balloons away cut away individual balloons so there's a whole calculation and it changes every flight depending on what i'm flying [Music] the feeling of launching is unparalleled it's not like anything else to fly an aircraft that's completely silent makes no sound we're approaching sunset it's really beautiful out there there's no rotor there's no prop there's no jet there's no burner like a hot air balloon there's no roar of wind like you get in a glider it's completely silent like listen there's no sound so what's the whole point of this why do it it's to lead an interesting life that is the most beautiful moon rise i've seen in my entire life it enriches my life to look back and reflect on what we've accomplished [Applause] i have all of those moments as prized memories to keep me warm in my old age [Music] hey everybody my name is drew beebe and i'm here in my terrible home studio that i've made during quarantine and i wanted to tell you about our new podcast called great big story it's got more surprising and delightful stories just like this one so head over to apple podcast to spotify wherever you get your favorite podcasts and download great big story

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 974,909

Rating: 4.943893 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, new releases, biography & profile, biography, profile, human condition, travel & adventure, travel, adventure, balloons, up, flying, hot air balloon, invention, inventing, Carl, Jonathan Trappe, soaring, IT consultant, pixar, helium, helium balloons, fly, soar

Id: pCkgAelO3og

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Naked_Lunge]

You wouldn’t want to try that with the ones I get from Party City.

[u/[deleted]]

I wonder who picks up all his shitty balloon litter