Posted on 10/17/2009 3:57:40 PM PDT by GVnana
Thomas spent several months earlier this year working on developing a reality science TV show to pitch to networks - the "show," Thomas says, that Falcon was referring to when he told CNN "We did it for the show."
Among the ideas that Heene, Thomas and two others came up with for their reality TV proposal and one that he says most intrigued Heene involved a weather balloon modified to look like a UFO which they would launch in an attempt to drum up media interest in both the Heene family and the series he was desperate to get on the air.
Still, Thomas never imagined that Heene would involve his six-year-old son in what he is certain was a "global media hoax" to further Richard Heene's own celebrity. Thomas' story of his time with Heene, based on an interview with Ryan Tate, follows below. It's a fascinating account and after he publicly offered to sell his story, we paid him for it.
-snip-
And then we delved into the area of UFOs. I was reading a book on witness reports of Roswell at the time, just out of curiousity I've never concluded whether it really took place or was an elaborate hoax. And Richard said, "how much do you want to bet we could facilitate some sort of a media stunt that would be equally profound as Roswell, and we could do so with nothing more than a weather balloon and some controversy?" (See item 16 here.)
Can we attract UFO's with a homemade flying saucer? We will modify a weather balloon, so that it resembles a UFO and will electrically charge the skin of the craft (Biefield-Brown Effect). We will capture the footage on film, and will utilize the media as a means with which to make our presence known to the masses. This will not only provide us with incredible footage, but will also generate a tremendous amount of controversy among the public, as well as publicity within the mainstream media. This will be the most significant UFO-related news event to take place since the Roswell Crash of 1947, and the result will be a dramatic increase in local and national awareness about The Heene Family, our Reality Series, as well as the UFO Phenomenon in general.
I clearly remember Richard telling me that, if we accomplish this, it would be the most controversial and widespread UFO news story since Roswell in 1947. (See audio at top of post.)
I’d say 10-20 lbs lift tops - not enough
Refer to the calculations in any of the original threads. Around 108 pounds lift at MSL, maybe 90 at density altitude. If memory serves the balloon contained approx 1,500 cubic feet of helium when full.
I am totally on-board with boundaries, and I keep the She-Beast (in me) ready to bring out when needed on the kids I teach. But I see really bad parenting a lot in folks who just do not understand how to be parents, but are. That’s what I am seeing in this family.
I realize there are bad parents out there. I’m sure you do see it. Some of the kids will survive it and be a fairly decent adult. Others will melt down and become terrible adults, and inflict this on their kids.
Some of the parents really think they are the best parents too. They have read all the books. They have taken the admonitions to heart, don’t ever raise their voice, never say no, remain supportive no matter what the kid wants to do. The defend them against every other adult. The kid is always right and the other adults are just unfair or unreasoned. At least that’s what they think.
The parents in this family seem to be media whores, among other things. It’s a real shame.
I agree with your premise.
Sorry I didn’t proof read that better.
Take the three kids away and give them to Octa-Mom. She couldn’t do any worse than these two wierdos.
Thanks for playing. You can pick up your Rice-a-Roni now.
It always amazes me that so many perps--and FReepers--fall for the nice, dumb cop routine, but I'm glad they do. I'm especially glad it worked on these bozos so the D.A. will now likely have a good case.
I’m still heartsick at the exploitation of these children.
As a parent I would give my life to protect my kids....
one of mine lives in CO and she remarked to me about the storm chasing/tornado chasing stuff. Mom, you never want us to drive out if it’s raining. (exaggerating of course) but she said there were men in her office with tears in their eyes worrying about the little boy.
We tend to attribute our own values onto others.
As did actual data from the recovered device--and the kid's true mass of less than 3/4 what many here were estimating.
I'm speculating that the device was originally covered with aluminum foil (following the father's ideas) but that it came off in flight. Anyone hear anything like that? I wonder if that would be the missing 18 pounds.
I'm curious...Now that it has been demonstated to be feasible, based on the kid's mass, the balloon's mass, and the helium capacity, does it mean you're an idiot?
I was suspicious that the cargo platform didn't sag more, but I realize that it wasn't a giveaway without more details on the craft's structure. And I have to give the guy credit for his design; it was pretty durn good.
I wonder — are the seams between individual sheets of mylar glued or ironed (like model aircraft coverings). They did a pretty good job (in the sense of an amateur’s prototype) of holding pressure. It would be a challenge to figure out the shape of the individual sheets without some kind of design tool. Anyone know what kind of framework (if any) the pressure bag structure has? I’m thinking of building a small one and sending my girls’ pet butterflies aloft (just kidding). Definitely will include a carbon composite baggage compartment.
Interesting coincidence...I was researching Padre Adelir Antonio de Carli, Larry Walters, Jason Ackerman/Sara Rydman, etc., when this incident with Falcon Heene went down. All of a sudden, my online searches started to lead to news stories about the "flying saucer with the 6-year-old," so the calculations of required helium for liftoff and how quickly death occurs from helium were fresh in my mind.
And would also agree that the guy was a good designer.
I don't know that the kid's body would have continued to radiate heat for long enough after his death to have allowed them to definitively show that he wasn't in there. Plus, the sunny day on a foil/plastic object would have confused things.
Besides, if they did see an IR signature, there would still be those who would have hoped that he could have survived with "the cold suppressing his metabolism," and "a potential pocket of ambient air in the 'gondola' (i.e., platform)," etc.
Oh damn! I just hope the kid doesn’t go through life as “puke boy.” His father needs some, er, uh, discipline.
Another FRiend mentioned the material may have also prevented meaningful IR results.
BTW, I assumed the carriage under the belly of the balloon was isolated from the helium filled body since it wouldn’t have made sense for the boy to crawl into the pre-inflated craft. I don’t know how cold it gets at a few thousand ft (or whatever altitude the balloon ascended) but I figured the kid was enduring the temperatures.
I found this on a CBS news report: While the balloon was in the air, the sheriff's department reached out to a university professor who determined that a balloon of that size would support a child the size of Falcon, Alderden said. The balloon could probably handle a payload of about 80 pounds. The child weighed 37 pounds.
I also googled a bunch of words like "balloon boy hoax feasability lift capacity" and hence to a lot of discussion forums in various places. Several posters who claimed hands-on experience with building and flying helium and hot air balloons stated flatly that it was absurd to even consider the kid could have been in it. No one claiming hands-on experience took any other view. Learned a few things -- such as an eight-foot-diameter helium weather balloon has a payload of 12 pounds, though whether or not that considers its decreased lifting power due to the altitude near Denver no one calculated. And a few other things:
1. The elevation in Colorado means the air is less dense, so the math for calculating helium capacity would have to be adjusted. Several posters noted that it would take more helium than at lower elevations.
2. One writer noted that one inflates helium to about half capacity for high flights because it nearly doubles in volume as the altitude increases. If it was filled to full capacity it would shoot straight up in the air and burst.
3. So the original caluculation of 80 lbs lift is immediately cut to 40 lbs, if it's correct about the helium expanding at higher altitudes.
4. At 40 lbs lift, you then have to consider the weight of the balloon and the structure. Mylar is pretty light, but estimating in your mind that whole mass of it wadded up and held in your arms -- what, three pounds? Two pounds? The glue or whatever material was used to put the pieces togehter to make such a wildly-shaped thing? We're not talking one sheet of mylar, we're talking a whole lotta pannels connected together somehow, and the material to do that weighs something. Then there is the weight of whatever he used for structure inside. So lets be easy, and say five pounds? Seven pounds so far, just guessing, but it's pretty common sense guessing. As for duct tape and tinfoil ... use your head. The stuff is HEAVY. Have you ever been around guys who fly models? I can tell you that an extra layer of paint, let alone a layer of tinfoil or duct tape!!!! -- adds weight that would surprise you.
Then there's the hardware on board. It at least included a "utility box," as mentioned by the father (remember this was supposedly an experimental craft for scientific missions, and as such would have to have monitors and such on board), and one story said he thought maybe his kid crawled into the utility box, as clearly there was no gondola attached. Batteries are notoriously heavy. So lets be really cheap and credit the guy for sinking dough into very expensive ultra-light stuff, and say the utility box weighed three pounds. So now the thing will probalbly weight ten pounds, so its lift capacity of 40 lbs is now 30 lbs. That's if the guy really knows what he's doing, but is there someplace he said he actually built/assembled the actual balloon, or (as in one story), did he say that he had purchased it ready-made? Is he a novice dabbler or a seriously accomplished designer-engineer?
5. The kid was 36 lbs; his jeans, shirts, and shoes were probably another two pounds. Educated, common sense guesses. COMMON SENSE is the key phrase. You think a baloon where its passenger, who is not provided with an acutal passenger compartment, could well more than triple the thing's "normal" weight, and not disturb the balance and equilibrium of the thing and not be OBVIOUS to any person actually watching????
There are two things going on. The first is entertaining and amusing: the media hysteria and all the people -- the vast majority of opinions, in fact -- that are focusing on the parents and are high and mighty about what horrible people they are.
The second is sobering and disturbing: the fact that rescue officials spent God only knows how much in equipment and time on the public dime to rescue a unicorn.
I don't care about the MSM side, and the huffing and puffing about terrible parents. There have always been, and God willing will always be, terrible parents, and neighbors who will shake their fingers at them. A good time was had by all in the fiasco, and the only losers were the news networks who weren't able to run their sponsors' ads to generate income to cover the expenses of the live remotes and all that crap. But it was probably worth it because their viewers had a blast. It really would have been nice, though, to see an actual helium balloon hands-on expert talk to those sensible people who took one look at the video and snorted, "That thing couldn't lift a 5-lb bag of potatoes!" Had they done that, the story might have embarassed a lot of media people within 30 minutes, but again, no harm, no foul financially.
On the other hand, that people in charge of tens of thousands of dollars and manpower hours directed toward rescue efforts, those officials, have the financial responsibility to look into such minor and boring scientific details, and you would think especially so when it was immediately noticeable to common sense types that this thing probably couldn't float a car batterly, let alone a fully-dressed 36-lb six year old boy!
But those rescuers get such a great opportunity to showboat in front of cameras, microphones, and news babes and metro-sexed reporters.
The density altitude adjustment is only 15% give or take. It was taken into account in the calculations, as pilots are prone to do.
What about the weight of the utility box? Was that factored into the calculations "as pilots are prone to do"?
Where was the kid -- inside with the helium? REEEEEEELY? How was he expected to breathe? THE FATHER KNEW THE KID WASN'T ON BOARD, AND ANYONE WITH A LICK OF SENSE KNEW AS WELL.
What about capacity of the balloon, and the probability that they're never inflated to 100 percent capacity because they'd burst -- was that factored into the calculations? What percentage of the volume, then, was factored into the calculations "as pilots are prone to do"? I'LL BET IT WASNT FACTORED AT ALL, but assumed to be 100 percent capacity.
Use your own lyin' eyes and your common sense, PUH-LEEEZE!!!! If it was just mylar, then a single solid mass of 36 pounds inside of it would distorted the mylar of the balloon OR had to be supported by some kind of structure, plywood? And if so, how much did THAT weigh, and how did that affect its lift? How could the thing's flight dynamics NOT change with that significantly increased of a payload on board? And wouldn't tripling the payload rip the mylar panels apart at the seams because they were only built to withstand one fourth the weight? Was THAT factored into the calculations, or were they strictly done via cubic capacity and lift?
USE YOUR COMMON SENSE. Before the sherrif went squandering a bunch of dough on rescue efforts, he should have damned well listened to people who had to have been telling him ... "Er, chief ... that thing couldn't lift a car batter higher than a couple of stories."
The Fuji blimp is 80 feet long, and at sea level its gondola carries four passengers plus the two little tiny motors with propellers. An 80-foot CYLYNDER at sea level; blimps are cylindrical because the shape provides the most cubic capacity.
Heard from any hands-on balloonists on this? Or is the "density altitude adustment was taken into account" all you've got?
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