The Berlin Wall by Balloons

The Balloon Project's Luca and Ira send a video camera up into the sky hanging from helium balloons in a rain storm as we chase it from below on bikes and into history.

The Story: It was a rainy afternoon in Berlin and our last chance to do The Berlin Balloon Project since Luca (one of the co-founders of The Balloon Project) was leaving the next day. We strapped more than 30 helium balloons to a video camera and sent it up all by itself over the city some few hundred meters. We then proceeded to chase it down with bikes as the rain slowly brought it back to earth. Watch "The Chase" to see how it looked from the ground. http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ND06VRnuelY
or see how we got the camera back:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=81TPfSpKXrA

*If you look carefully you can see that our "Message in a Balloon" traveled from East Berlin, over the historic Berlin Wall (at 4:00 minutes (bernauer str), and into freedom in West Berlin.
*Shortly after at 6:50 the camera flies over the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart.

More @ http://theballoonproject.org

the route mapped out: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1710353

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• berlin
• wall
• bernauer
• str
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• germany
• aerial
• video
• over
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• by
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• balloons
• google
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• crash
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• rain
• brings
• down
• theballoonproject
• 99
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• 20
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• nach
• berliner
• mauer
• 1989
• 2007
• 2009

[Baritone45]

I'd guess you got up maybe 500 to 1000 feet (excuse my American English system of measurement), guessing that you were more than 4 times as high as some 10-story buildings. Have you worked out an accurate estimate of the altitude? I'm guessing you did not have an altimeter onboard.

[TheBalloonProject]

@Baritone45 no altimeter and it's hard to tell how high it got. the eiffel tower is about 1000. from seeing the eiffel tower today i'd say these balloons got about 800 feet up at least.

[Baritone45]

That was neat. Have you ever hit anybody or damaged any property with these? You really can't control that, you know. How did you get the video? Just by retrieving the onboard storage device, flash memory or whatever the camera has? You didn't transmit it, did you? Looks like it did survive the fall. How long did it take you to find it? Did the finder call you?

[TheBalloonProject]

@Baritone45 luckily we've never damaged any property. this camera was found by a family (seen in the end of the video). they thought it was a bomb at first but then after watching the footage they called us. nice berliners!

[LepClassics]

Wie habt ihr die Cam Wieder Bekommen ?? wenn sie rundergeknallt ist XDD?

[TheBalloonProject]

@LepClassics die frauen haben wir zuruckgerufen. :)

[punkpasta123]

did u use 99 of them?

[builttoshred99]

wow thts really cool, how did u retrieve the film?

[Baritone45]

@TheBalloonProject I hope you continue to have good luck. It's a fascinating project. I think it would be really cool to see an altimeter readout, but guessing at the height is fun. I got dizzy a couple of times when the camera spun. Have you been able to reuse your cameras every time?

[SupayyRandija128]

hïhî_pâsst_hìèr_ñêt_rèín_ábã_í­ch_bìn_sö_êïñsam_will_jëmàñd_m­ít_mïa_schrèíbèñ

[152Oslo]

wo sieht man denn die mauer? oô

total verarsche!

[MrMotorider85]

@builttoshred99 oh thats easy.....they chased the fil untill the ballons popped then caught the fone on its fall back to earth... ;)

[Jakob2213]

how the hell you get it back

[mikethenascarfan]

this would have been useful in WWII