Gigantic Solar Balloon

[TheBastered]

hmmm...if to keep the balloon up in the air longer, u need small heat to provide little long lift, I can't tell u how long it will last staying up there, but the one thing I know for sure is cold air will kill good heat air that is trying to provide the lift.

[BlackyChan963]

I have seen a couple of these where they use the bags inside old vacuum cleaners and they are huge, Do you think a couple of those would be enough to bring you off your feet and float for a bit if you jumped off something?

[wilburtrex]

I had a monsterous 190 39 gallon bag balloon at home I need to do an inaugural inflation with. I re-enforced the bottom with gorilla tape after seeing this video. Thanks for the inspiration!

[unit518]

i was hoping he would fly away with the balloon! XD

[MstrKordell]

is this filmed in the wack (Chillawack) twin rinks

[josephdupont]

how much pull was there.

[squirrelgecko]

@josephdupont enough to pull me up a little bit as it hit the end of the rope, but not enough to lift me up for an extended period of time.

[14omega28ok]

Shit this song Makes me think of sitting back playing old Baseball and football games for the snes, Good times

[StormChaserNick]

this is great guys!!! This is the kind of stuff I love to do!!!!

[parrisluck123]

that looks like the thing they saw in china

[PastYears]

Again! Again! Do it again! \

But this time More Air less wind.

[SkeyeDreamer]

AMAZIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!  GREAT GUYS!!!!!!

[balonfan]

hello.

i have a solar balloon,12 m high and 96 trash bags!!

greetzz out The Netherlands!!

[eduardobrutz]

olha esse aki

o maior balão do mundo

[eduardobrutz]

Para de quere parece brasilero seu animal

cade o fogo dessa merda

voce chama isso de balão

olha isso aqui

[yellowmetalcyborg]

Some pilot 30 miles away talks to his copilot:

Hey Billy, I think I'm going crazy, I think I see a giant trash bag floating in the sky right in front of us.

Naaa settle down George, wait, OH MY GOD! There really is a floating trash bag in the sky! Call Houston immediately!!!

Buckle up, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

[oguretsagressive]

Awesome stuff! Brilliant idea to use trash bags. But the form seems not perfect. Too much air inside is not being heated by the shell, and half of the solar energy is dissipated outside of the balloon. In theory, black surface inside a fully transparent shell should double the efficiency. Maybe multi-section design would work? Think I'm gonna try it myself :)

[squirrelgecko]

@oguretsagressive yes, that would be more efficient. people who make large solar balloons for solar balloon jumping use that method. make sure you fim it and send me a link if you do end up doing it! I would love to see it!

[jcmegabyte]

Looks like a fun project!  I'm guessing that the dark balloon envelope absorbs solar heat and keeps the air inside hot after the initial hot air filling.. I wonder how rubber cement or even heat-sealing might work to join the panels together... might be a lot stronger than masking tape.

I like the aerial camera implementation, too - I'm hoping to do some R/C powered/sailplane aerial shooting if I can ever get around to designing/building the aircraft XD

[docatomics]

...fantabulous, been wanting to do a big garbage bag for a long time, but the garbage bags weren't thin enough before. Now imagine hydrogen filled !

[ScarFace9797]

i made one about half the size and let it go with a note. I got fined 150 dollars for pollution. FmyLife.

[jk47hm4]

HAHAHAHAHAA!! XD

[jhuger]

Banned NASA footage shows real UFO! Anti-gravity technology the government doesn't want you to see! :p

I've seriously seen youtube videos with UFOs that looked exactly like this.

[peepeevagi]

Using your moms hairdryer i see.

[curea229]

Let it go next time dude.

[92emostyle]

how minimum size for this balloon flight?

[rallyramone]

@92emostyle Depends on weather, colder the air is smaller balloon will fly. Today I launched 3 wastebag balloon succesfully.

[reinierbekiuslive]

how long did you totaly took to fill it up with air :P

[squirrelgecko]

it took about 15-20 minutes if I remember correctly

[dmitrydonskihgmail]

IMHO, "Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly" track would fit this video greatly :)

[mistask8a]

wheres my bb gun?

[THEPERRYCOOPER]

wow dudes that was awsome ...my family owns a 290 acre farm and i would love to try that

[DayLight95]

tough

[mistask8a]

rich bietchhhhhh

[RMHSparkour]

it will stay airborne as long as the sun is shining.

[sciencetoymaker]

Brilliant!

[Javelen]

Oh my God! It's a UFO!

[ccolwell19941]

ii wonder what the people in the houses thought when they saw this thing.....

[olegnalocj]

Great job! I made one last year, but was a long cylinder shape. I went in the house for a few mins - the tether broke, floated over to neighbors property and deflated. He saw it as a bunch of trash bags and threw it out.

[qtxyz]

that start techinque :D i was just thincking about for my balon it is nice to see that it works fine :D

[har32]

i remeber i had to make a thing like this in shop only out of paper but mine got messed up so i found one some one threw away >:-)

[murdergame1]

how do u get the shape of a balloon with bags. do u have to build a shell first.

[squirrelgecko]

I just taped them all together. I didn't make a shell, I just folded them and taped them

[CrustyBiker]

Thats what I wondered, to make a balloon shape on this scale must have been a knightmare, Did you cut the bags into big flat squares first?

[Crazyokapimonkey]

awesome

[YourMomIsYuorDad22]

what do you tape it together with?

[garystorey]

tape you moron

[BowlingFreak218]

masking tape

[candr]

Might you use the black cover plastic used in construction that you can get in rolls 100 or 200 feet long at DIY stores or is that two thick and heavy?

[squirrelgecko]

I don't know...do you have a measurement on how thick it is? I'm guessing it would work, but you would need to make a huge balloon.

[candr]

Most I think is about 6 mil. Yeah It would have to be big, Was thinking of the solar balloon they made about 30 years ago out of black material to prove that that the builders of the Nazca Lines used one to watch the layout of figures. Balloon worked great, but the therory didn't hold much water.:)

[ihakkr]

what reasources did the Nazcas have that was thin, black (or a dark color), and was available in large amounts of quanitys?

[candr]

Perhaps the same that airships of the early 19th and 20th century had. If you remember the giant airships like the Hindenburg and Graf Zepp used what was called Goldbeater Skins for the balloons inside their frames (outer layer of the lower intestines of animals). granted that would be a lot of llamas and we are only talking about one or two ships, but maybe possible (then perhaps dye it a darker color, but I highly doubt it, but an interesting theory anyway.

[ovniforos]

Mmmmm, caucho ?

[tenpinbowl12]

Ill get them from asda (Scotland)

[Freddythethird]

what kind of trash bags were those and where do you get them? Do they have them at the 99 cent store or a simular brand?

[squirrelgecko]

they were the Ruffies that I got in bulk from Walmart. they don't have to be anything in particular, just black and less than .5 mm in thickness. It works with slightly thicker bags, but it doesn't get as much lift.

keep me posted if you ever make one!

[dnave21]

let the sucker go i bet there will be people calling it a ufo

[masterdebator7]

wat a waste of electricity u dumb shit

[adrianTNT]

"Black" is good but sounds heavy

[tescofood]

and heavy?

[Sepero1]

Make one big enough to carry you

[squirrelgecko]

I'm working on it :)

[demonsparkx]

haha that sucks but nice try,damn tree just came outta nowhere ^_^ lol 5/5

[adrianTNT]

Get an emergency parachute with you just in case. And a life vest, and a mirror for signals, they will find you hopefully :)

[6foxtrot333]

Shoot it it'll have to come down

[AerostatMilpitas]

Thanks for the vid, I waited for a really calm morning before trying my first balloon, and still got holes(!) Posted a few, click AerostatMilpitas.

[DelJunya]

oh man you rock XD

that thing is awesome get a camera on it!

[tobiasf1]

Tell me the steps to make this. I'd really like to try!

[masterpaperaircrafts]

Interesting experience. How long lasted the flight? Did it land alone when it lost lift? Or did you force it to land?

[squirrelgecko]

I had a 100 foot tether on it, so I pulled it down when it started floating towards tress. each flight lasted about five minutes.

I hope to get this thing in the air again soon once I patch up all the holes. :)

[NacionalCapitalista]

I wonder how high it would go if it wasn't tethered

[squirrelgecko]

I'm going to figure that out someday :)

[VHDT10]

The Final Countdown.

[siytvlover]

carl idk i think you should have like put something explosive in it then when it lands it explodes see thats where it becomes illegal mastaE3

other then that the cops in Colorado would probably be like hey man is that a fucking balloon? nah man just give me more of that hash.

[dpaxson17]

this is awesome!

[geekboy617]

what song is that

[squirrelgecko]

Final countdown by Europe

[MastaE3]

is that even legal? doesnt that constitute for creating an air hazard or something?

[squirrelgecko]

I think it is...

[sionmaisley]

COOL!!! I just wished ya hadnt used that awful song lol

[modxred]

i like how you ran to get the balloon

[Seto89]

too bad the on-board footage wasn't more interesting... But it's still a great toy :)

[squirrelgecko]

my other videos are better for aerial footage :)

[youvebeenframed11]

can you use 1 bin bag

[squirrelgecko]

4 works fine

[youvebeenframed11]

i know 4 works but i want to make a mini one so thats why i want to know id 1 works

[squirrelgecko]

I doubt it, unless you have reeeeeeaaaaalllllyyy thin film

[annacrombie1996]

oh my gosh! thats humungo! haha

its like flying a gigantic...heavy...uncontrolab­le..kite! haha...wait i think..ive never heard of something like this! ha.

[catman529]

That's the most awesome solar balloon made from trash bags. Hats off to you...I know what it's like taping trash bags together, 100 is more than I ever planned on doing.

[DuhDaDuh2]

Omfg dude...That thing is huge I bet I could have seen it from my house

[squirrelgecko]

you could have, it was seen by others from about 1 mile away.