Posted on 10/15/2009 11:45:55 AM PDT by Arec Barrwin
Not unintentionally, they don’t!
I'll wait for all of the facts to come in first but again I hope your're right and the kid is okay
The just interviewed a 55 year old neighbor man with a pony tail...hehehe....Said they saw the family working on this thing this morning....
lol...
LOL you were only off by 1000 :0)
“Helium has to lift way more than one gram per cubic meter.”
A cubic meter of air weighs about 1.2 kg. A cubic meter of helium (at standard pressure and temperature) weighs about .18 kg. So, allowing for the weight of the enclosure, a cubic meter of helium might lift about 1 kg. So a 20 kg child would need about 20 cubic meters of helium to lift him or her, in addition to amount needed to lift whatever the balloon and other things weigh.
The real question is, how much excess lifting capacity did this contraption have, after accounting for the weight of the ballon and the stuff hanging off it?
Helium Balloons Carry Man in Lawn Chair 193 Miles
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288809,00.html
good point... can’t recall how much helium they needed for the weather balloon rig.
I posed the question earlier: how/why on earth did the thing come to a sudden stop and just float?? My fear is it did so because it suddenly ‘lost weight’. I suspect it was the weight that kept it moving so fast.
Sounds like it had a platform of plywood. Had to be at least an inch thick to hold the weight of an adult (if that was his goal.) That would be quite a bit of weight in itself.
My husband remembers that episode. The synopsis of the show tells a lot.
http://abc.go.com/shows/wife-swap/episode-guide/heenemartel/132697?page=1
I have a question:
How is a helium filled, tethered balloon, even close enough to the ground to be boarded by anyone?
And if the brother saw him go in, why did he untether the balloon after that?
You have to wonder...did little Falcon disappear BEFORE or AFTER the balloon went up?
Do we have yet another killing of a 6 yr old by the parents—with an elaborate coverup?
The parents are obviously crazy and irresponsible.
One more source:
Helium has a lifting capacity of 1.02 kg/m3
Lets see, families 20 foot weather balloon takes off and they have a kid missing... LOL!
Yah. Thanks for the correction. Major brain malfunction on my part. I think your math is right.
Helium - about 9.8 N of lift (the force to lift 1 kg) per cubic meter of gas at room temperature and sea level pressure.
The father is a “storm chaser”, trying to prove that rotating storms produce magnetic fields. He brings the kids along sometimes, following tornadoes and the like.
http://www.denverpost.com/extremes/ci_6530596
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