Hot air balloons can be manufactured in all sorts of bizarre shapes.
So BorgCo are going to offer one shaped like Santa's sleigh, complete with reindeer.
The sleigh itself is the envelope; the reindeer are are extremely lightweight structures, built of inflatable components and utilizing composites such as carbon fibre. They are balanced against the moment of the basket, which is smaller than a typical unit (only big enough for pilot, co-pilot and fuel and power supply) and painted matt black.
The envelope and reindeer are suitably illuminated by high-efficiency (LED or EL) lighting to make the assembly highly visible from the ground.-- 8th of 7, Dec 10 2018 "Mummy, why does Santa keep lighting his farts?"-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 10 2018 Yea, alright, but why not just have a sleigh, reindeer fat dude shaped mylar balloon where all the elements are included? Wouldn't work with hot air but would work fine with helium or hydrogen.
As far as maneuvering, well, just let it float across the sky maybe. If these got popular then Christmas eve could be experienced like it was in days before electricity as all those free floating Santa shaped mylar balloons short out the power lines.
Magical.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2018 // free floating Santa shaped mylar balloons short out the power lines. //
That is nothing less than childish, socially-disruptive highly reprehensible gratuitous vandalism and mischief-making, upsetting a great many people for no good reason.
Less than two weeks to Christmas now, better get cracking on making those balloons ...-- 8th of 7, Dec 12 2018 On it.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 12 2018 Would this not be vulnerable to ground based anti-aircraft gun fire?-- xenzag, Dec 12 2018 With luck.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 12 2018 The Bofors range is very effective. Incidentally 8th - hydrogen is by far the best gas for this type of balloon, and it's on special offer at the moment.-- xenzag, Dec 12 2018 Oh, good ... please send a link.
Normally we use helium, because we get that for free as a waste product from our backup fusion reactors.-- 8th of 7, Dec 12 2018 random, halfbakery