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A horrible accident where 16 people were killed made
me
thing this might be a way to avoid future tragedies.
Hot air balloons carry gas canisters and burners to keep
aloft. If they accidentally catch fire there's very little the
balloon's riders can do.
The idea is to keep the flames
and flammable gas a safe
distance from the balloon, transferring the hot air via a
tube to the balloon envelope. So the balloon would
consist
of the balloon itself, the passenger gondola and hanging
100 feet below, the burners and tanks.
If for some reason a fire were to erupt, it would be a
safe
distance from the balloon passengers and could be easily
released and allowed to drop.
They don't call it Safeway fer nuthin.
http://www.am1150.c...safeway-parking-lot
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 31 2016]
Your_20own_20Vulcan_20bomber
Your own Vulcan bomber (sort of) [not_morrison_rm, Aug 01 2016]
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Got to see one of these emergency land in a Safeway parking a couple of weeks ago, "Way" too close to power lines. [link]
There is no reason I can see why they could not be solar hot air balloons with altitude controlled by electric heat augmentation for rapid ascent. The cool thing about solar hot air balloons is that excess heat could be dissipated in the form of a passive lateral thrust. (+) |
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Wow, and they really do make these baskets out of
wicker? You won't find me in one of those flying
firebombs. |
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They are safer than helicopters, but only just. |
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Bizarrely, hydrogen balloons would probably be safer. |
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But the main problem is that, like helicopters, the occupants have no meaningful control over the flight profile, apart from the certain knowledge that inevitably gravity will triumph at some point. |
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For over a hundred of your Earth years, practical fixed-wing aircraft have been widely available; yet to some, hot air ballooning still appears to be a reasonable option for air travel. Quite why is not obvious. |
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I've only been in a helicopter a couple of times. It's
all about trusting that auto-gyration really works
should the engine die. |
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The backup plan when something goes wrong in a
balloon is to die. If it bursts into flames you have
three choices: 1-Jump to your death 2- Burn to
death or my favorite 3- Do both. |
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I'm definitely sticking with fixed wing aircraft with
a reasonable glide ratio and where the fuel is
burned a little bit further than four feet away from
my
head. |
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// If for some reason a fire were to erupt, it would be a safe distance from the balloon passengers and could be easily released and allowed to drop. // |
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And if the basket were to catch fire then the passengers could be automatically jettisoned to save them from burning to death. |
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// I'm definitely sticking with fixed wing aircraft with a reasonable glide ratio and where the fuel is burned a little bit further than four feet away from my head. // |
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Ditto.
When my flight instructor crashed, and I got his answering-machine message asking me to co-pilot with him for ten free flying hours towards my license the day after he died, it gave me major creeps and I didn't finish the course with a new instructor.
So I figured out how to create a semi-fixed wing aircraft that requires no motor and can stay aloft indefinitely.
In fact I believe that indefinitely suspended airports are possible and that larger aircraft never need to touch earth.
Passengers will be shuttled to these platforms in much smaller aircraft and the savings in fuel consumption and maintenance will pay for the construction ten fold... as a side bonus the shadows cast can be used to help reverse desertification if properly applied. |
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^ semi-fixed wing aircraft |
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my rather tedious (but fits the profile) post entitled Your
own Vulcan bomber, see linky. |
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Still haven't figured out why balloons are not firewalled
internally, I'm guessing some graphene mesh would stand
the heat and stop the whole damn thing burning. |
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A burning material made up of a contained plasma in a doped bucky-buble wrap has not made it onto the balloon material advances versus time plot yet. |
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Wow, creepy story 2Frys, that would shake me up. |
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Several years ago signing my life insurance policy,
right before I signed the guy said "Oh yea, you
don't pilot planes do you?" to which I said "Not for
many years." He then pointed out that that was
good, because this doesn't cover air crashes when
I'm the pilot. I had gone through so much trouble
to get this thing, losing weight etc that I just went
ahead and signed. Now of course I really want to
resume flying, probably because I can't. |
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As far as the heat rising from the fire, I don't think
it's going to be a problem from 100 feet below.
Putting the burner above but far from the basket
I'd be nervous about having that fire overhead and
still under the envelope. I like the emergency
break away concept. |
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But something's got to be done if the recreational
balloon industry is to survive. The death is just too
horrible to make risking it a fun proposition. For
me anyway. |
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My understanding is that the balloon caught fire
when it hit power lines - am I wrong? |
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I think hot air balloons are only around because of the
grandfathering in effect. Can you imagine proposing the
concept as a novel idea to any major authority now? "I
propose a flying device, essentially an enlarged re-purposed
fruit basket with an enormous fire on top. Above that, a big,
colorful and entirely flammable part that definitely won't
ignite because its separated from the enormous fire by a
couple of feet, reliable directional control is ensured by the
prevailing wind, or any other winds that turn up" |
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//My understanding is that the balloon caught fire when it
hit power lines - am I wrong?// |
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I know powerlines take these things down on a pretty
regular basis. One of the problems with riding in a vehicle
that you can't steer. |
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Add to the design, it has to have an automatic disconnect
when it hits a powerline. |
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If it caught fire because it hit power lines, the gas
burner may have had nothing to do with it. |
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Assuming that the locations of all power lines are
known, it must shirley be possible to have a map
which, combined with a GPS, would set off an alarm
when the balloon is getting uncomfortably close to
power lines. The pilot only needs to fire the burners
to clear them. |
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It can be a bit more complicated than that. |
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Having watched balloons miss powerlines by a few metres on
two occasions from really close range (altho thannkfully not from
inside the basket) it is clear that the landing phase is fraught with
difficulty. |
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Horizontal velocity is not controllable. |
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Vertical velocity is marginally controllable. Much depends in the
time of day, season, and cloud cover, along with humidity. |
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Shallow inversion layers can form. As the balloon cools and
descends into such a layer, it can abruptly lose lift. Heating the
balloon to gain lift is not instantaneous, so the sink rate can
increase rapidly. In the evening, with a rapidly cooling stratified
air mass, it becomes pure chance. |
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Landing involves descending, but (and this is the important part)
not too quickly. |
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The pilot has the option of attempting a least-worst crash in
daylight, or just waiting and crashing at random in the dark.
The passengers don't have any options at all. |
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