• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Small Balloons' Long Flights (Message-In-A-Balloon; Accidents; Etc.)

Dickydevo

Dickydevo

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
114
This topic does not fit any category I can think of,but does anyone have any records/cuttings of travel by small helium balloons over long distances,i.e. 300 miles +? I mean balloons that have been returned to the sender somewhere in Britain because they have a label attached giving the sender`s address?

When I was about 10 (1976) our class sent off a balloon from west Wiltshire,only to be returned from southern Germany!
 
Dickydevo said:
This topic does not fit any category I can think of,but does anyone have any records/cuttings of travel by small helium balloons over long distances,i.e. 300 miles +? I mean balloons that have been returned to the sender somewhere in Britain because they have a label attached giving the sender`s address?

When I was about 10 (1976) our class sent off a balloon from west Wiltshire,only to be returned from southern Germany!
Click to expand...

NO.

Why are we shouting? :)
 
Dickydevo said:
This topic does not fit any category I can think of,but does anyone have any records/cuttings of travel by small helium balloons over long distances,i.e. 300 miles +? I mean balloons that have been returned to the sender somewhere in Britain because they have a label attached giving the sender`s address?

When I was about 10 (1976) our class sent off a balloon from west Wiltshire,only to be returned from southern Germany!
Click to expand...

This kind of thing rings a vague bell (whatever that sounds like) but I might be getting mixed up with messages in bottles.

I'm sure one of those events where they set off thousands of balloons has resulted in one or two long distance fliers, but I would have thought it's very much dependent on the weather, also because they'll probably burst or deflate at some point in their journey.

There is an unsubstantiated report about a man in the USA flying to South America using helium balloons, of course. Might make a good film. :spinning
 
I'd like to see a string of fines for littering from every country in the flightpath, sending loads of ballons up for this sort of thing is criminal IMHO.
 
LordRsmacker said:
I'd like to see a string of fines for littering from every country in the flightpath, sending loads of ballons up for this sort of thing is criminal IMHO.
Click to expand...

Do you think it happens often enough to justify changing the law to ban the practice?
 
The law doesn't need changing in the UK. If I walk down the street and throw my crisp packet away, I get fined, and rightly so. Why should it be different if I let 2 dozen balloons loose, smugly claiming it's for "charidee"?

Someone, somewhere, has to pick this litter up, preferably before their livestock, or marine creatures like turtles etc, eat it. Perhaps if 2 dozen ballons are released, then 2 dozen confirmed replies should be sent by the finders of the balloons, along with the balloon itself, to be rewarded with a prize. If, say 3 replies are received, then the organisers should be fined x 21.
That might make smug Rotary Clubs, School fetes etc think twice before they indiscriminately send their garbage as far as the wind will take it.

You know those seemingly innoccuous things that put you into a blind fury out of all proportion? Well, releasing balloons is one of the many things that yanks my chain, I'm afraid. 8)
 
LordRsmacker said:
You know those seemingly innoccuous things that put you into a blind fury out of all proportion? Well, releasing balloons is one of the many things that yanks my chain, I'm afraid. 8)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can understand your reasoning, especially because don't rubber balloons have a half life of environmental damage about three times that of uranium? Something outrageous, anyway. I'm sure that the balloons in the opening titles of TV-am are still stuck in the nation's hedgerows somewhere.

But I'm not sure it happens all that often, that's all.
 
My niece's primary school did a sponsored balloon release a couple of Summers ago. I doubt they'll be doing another one, not after the fuss I made, congratulating them on killing more marine wildlife then a Japanese fishing fleet. Oh the tears! My sister is still giving me a hard time about it.
But I was right, wasn't I? Teach 'em young, the meaning of responsibility. We pollute and poison as a race beyond measure, and we'll never redress that, we shouldn't crown it all by deliberately causing more damage, even if it is dressed up as for charity.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A UK eatery's attempt to send a samosa into space via a weather balloon got as far as France.
Samosa sent to 'space' by British eatery crash-lands in France
JAN. 11, 2021 / 5:45 PM

A restaurant in Britain attempted to use weather balloons to send a samosa "to space," but the food item ended up crash-landing in France.

Niraj Gadher, owner of the Chai Walla eatery in Bath, England, said he came up with the idea to send the samosa to space as a means of bringing some mirth to what has been a difficult time. ...

"I said as a joke once that I would send a samosa into space, and then I thought during this bleak times we could all use a reason to laugh" ...

Gadher and his friends attached the samosa to a weather balloon outfitted with a GoPro camera and a GPS tracker so they could follow the food item's journey, but shortly after launch they discovered the GPS was malfunctioning.

Gadher said he thought the project was a loss, but the next day the GPS reactivated and revealed the balloon had crash-landed in a field in Caix, Picardie, France. ...

An Instagram user with the handle AxelMathon set out on a mission to find the crash site, and he said he was shocked to find the balloon and the box containing the GoPro and the GPS hanging from a tree in a field.

The samosa and its wrapper were missing from the crash site, leading Gadher to theorize it had become a meal for some French wildlife.

It's unknown how high the samosa ended up traveling, but a clip recorded by its GoPro camera shows it being passed by an airplane. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...h-eatery-crash-lands-in-France/9301610403369/
 
A Missouri boy's birthday balloons got away from him and drifted circa 500 miles to Tennessee. The man who discovered the lost balloons was impressed and sent gifts back to the boy.
Missouri second-grader's lost birthday balloons float 500 miles to Tennessee

A Missouri second-grader whose birthday balloons flew off into the sky received some special gifts in the mail from a man who found the lost balloons 500 miles away.

Kason Johnson's mother said she was walking her son to the family car at Mountain Grove Elementary School in Mountain Grove, Mo., when he lost hold of the balloons that had been presented to him at school for his 8th birthday. ...

The balloons appeared to be gone for good, but a few days later Todd Huyler was mowing his lawn in Cleveland, Tenn., when he spotted some balloons stuck in his fence.

The balloons were attached to an envelope that bore the name of the business that sold the balloons as well as the name of the school.

Huyler, a woodworker, sent handmade gifts including a baseball bat to Johnson and his teacher. Huyler also included photos of himself and his dachshund, Henry, as well as $100 for Johnson and a letter to the boy's parents.

"Truly a message in a bottle," Huyler wrote of the balloons. "The simple gesture of a family showing love and appreciation to their 2nd grader with a gift of surprise humbly impacted me beyond belief. How amazingly fortunate Kason is to have a family that will make the effort to show unselfish love." ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/1...loons-500-miles-birthday-gifts/6181666901806/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top