What is Digg?141 Comments
- satx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+69This is on my short list of things to do before I die.
- blaaguuu, on 10/11/2007, -2/+66Um, as I recall they "Confirmed" the lawn chair flight myth.
- thekronz, on 10/11/2007, -5/+63Buried as innacurate:
Nobody wants to travel to Idaho. - garycompugeek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+58Now if I couuld only do that with a recliner.
- Otto, on 10/11/2007, -1/+48Uhhh... No, Mythbusters showed that it was perfectly possible. Not that it was even in doubt, since Larry Walters did it in 1982.
- burdalane, on 10/11/2007, -0/+42I recall seeing an Australian movie on TV with the same premise. A Sydney man flies in his balloon-powered lawn chair to a small town in the outback and crashes in the backyard of a cop played by Miranda Otto. As expected, romance ensues.
- Zammo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+42He was smart enough to have a parachute, then again ... is this ever a good idea?
- conturax, on 10/11/2007, -1/+40I wonder if he said to his friends before he took off, "Hey ya'll, watch this"...
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+39A guy named "Couch" flying a lawn chair.... Pretty funny.
- tmaiden, on 10/11/2007, -0/+37Pictures: http://www.kgw.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=4411&nextimage=1
- exabrial, on 10/11/2007, -1/+30Bored at work. I did a little math. This *could* be possible from the picture.
I counted the number of balloons. I came up with 59. I then estimated the size... scaling with the lawn chair, I'd say they were 4ft balloons. Thats about 34 cubic feet (http://www.1728.com/diam.htm) of helium per baloon. 59*34=2006cubic feet of helium (that is visible, there are probably more balloons)
Now I was doing the calculations by hand, but I found this page which did them for me: http://science.howstuffworks.com/helium2.htm. Basically, for every liter of helium in nitrogen, you get about a gram of lift. One liter is about 0.0353 cubic feet. This meeans 2006/.0353=57kg or 125pounds. Looking at manufactures page, a .5 mil baloon weighs .8oz, or 0.05lbs. 59*.05=2.95lbs. For the lawn chair, assuming he used the cheap alluminum kind from walmart, the shpping weight is 5lbs.
So total we have:
125.00lbs lift
-2.95lbs rubber
-5.00lbs chair
=========
117.50lbs Net Lift From the *visible* balloons. I estimate we're only close to seeing maybe 2/3 of the actual number of balloons, which could mean that we have 187.5lbs of lift, just in the picture, which is plausible.
Back to work - 1jaxstate1, on 10/11/2007, -2/+30Becareful, it might be the last thing you do before you die.
- hydroplane, on 10/11/2007, -0/+27Danny Deckchair
- Bondrake, on 10/11/2007, -0/+25Using the bathroom is also called, "releasing ballast"
- vsayuni, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18Keep in mind that by being a Digger, you'll probably need twice as many balloons.
- spectre_25gt, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18That was a different myth. They confirmed the lawn chair weather balloon myth with Adam in the chair.
- IphtashuFitz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16Actually they got this one right, in part because they knew it had been done 25 years ago. They've done a few different balloon myths, and the lawnchair with weather balloons was proven plausible. Lawnchair Larry did this back in 1982 and received a lot of attention at the time. He didn't plan on going as high as he did, but he actually made it up to 16,000 feet and was seen by the pilot of a commercial jetliner. He ended up getting arrested when he landed and fined by the FAA for violation of commercial airspace. You can read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry.
- strafefire, on 10/11/2007, -41/+56Yet another one that Mythbusters got wrong!
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15Hahah, that's fricken awesome. It would be more awesome if he was caught on Google Earth.
- danconia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Wow this is hilarious and awesome. Who else wants to do this now? If things go awry all you gotta do is skydive back down. I wonder what his landing was like.
- stormbreaker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Aww man.
I thought it said 193 miles PER HOUR...
THAT would have been awesome. - jonellison13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12AWESOME
- zovres, on 10/11/2007, -0/+113. is he on google earth?
4. what will the RIAA come up with to sue him? - NinjaBoy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15Yeah they did confirm it. They got a small girl to take off. I think they only used regular balloons. If i was going to do this id try from some industrial grade *****.
- kyleforeman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10Crazy, this is my college roommate's Dad. I just found out about it an hour ago.
- twiglet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10that's a different myth/episode you are thinking of. the one in question would be S01E03.
(http://www.tvrage.com/MythBusters/episodes/376923) - ChronicColonic, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Now I have an excuse for being a couch potato...I am training for my balloon flight.
- IphtashuFitz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9MythBusters did two different myths. One was specifically based on Lawnchair Larry and this stunt. The other was the kid and helium balloons inside a hangar. They were testing two very different myths during two different seasons.
- crackedplastic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9The real question: Did he have to use the bathroom, and how did he accomplish this?
- vroom101, on 10/11/2007, -1/+81. Did NORAD track him on their radar?
2. What, if anything, will the FAA do in response? - PeakAction, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Psh! Murdoch did it first, with trash bags and a hair dryer! And *he* was breaking out of prison!
- mtrip, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Nice work, just want to point out though that saying something *could* be possible, or is plausible, when it's already actually happened is absurd. Whatever is actual is possible, the math just explains it at that point, it doesn't verify it.
- iChaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7thats just genuinely awesome.
- ydt89, on 10/11/2007, -5/+12mythbusters used normal sized party balloons..These look alot bigger o.0
- satx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7That's what parachutes are for, my friend.
- bendingbeats, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7Just like the movie "Danny Deckchair"
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337960/ - andregriffin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6If only Kent Couch had done it in a *ahem* couch...
- diggsIt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6This is good for you. You guys can do any stupid thing you want, and if you get caught you can say it wasn't as stupid as lawn chair flying.
- roomforpanic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7What, murder? Yeah, I think about it sometimes.
>.> - garageillusion, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5No greater truth hath ever been spoken. I am from Oregon, and am going to college in Idaho. My...god
- airwalkery2k, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5This man just lived out all of my dreams in one swoop.
- mogus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Even if he was traveling that fast, he would be experiencing little wind (or maybe even turbulence) as he is traveling with the wind. You'd see the ground going by, but the ride would be pretty calm...
- Hoinah, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Yeah but this wasn't with weather balloons, it was with standard helium balloons. The mythbusters on lifting a child with helium balloons they rigged a 4 or 5 year old to a couple thousand helium balloons and just barely got her off the ground. Curious what he did differently
- zip000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I think that guy is giving the Nazi salute in the first picture!
Nazis are invading Idaho! - Scrappy1850, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Was this movie made by Yahoo Serious?
- mancat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4What are you trying to say? That if he was black he could have just jumped the whole 193 miles?
- skankyBacon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I'm from Eugene, but...no. No you can't.
- selrahc, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Just hope nothing goes wrong when you are about 50-100 feet above the ground.
- theNthDoctor, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Ahh, sweet freedom! I have balloon envy.
- blaaguuu, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I dunno... looking at the picture in the article, those balloons each look bigger than the lawn chair... Bigger than your average helium balloon, i would say.
Also, the myth they were testing really had to do with whether a gown adult (possibly a clown), heavy enough to stay grounded could hand a bundle of balloons to a small child, only to watch the child float away - with the mass of "regular" balloons it took them to get the kid off the ground, i would say they properly busted that specific balloon myth. -
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