Overflite Model Hot Air Balloons

Instructions How to Build Birthday Candle Engine Powered UFO Fire Balloons
Mathematics and Technology for Science and Design

Birthday Candle Balloons can light for over ten minutes, climb over two thousand feet high, sail for over a mile, shine like big orange stars and then finally burnout.  It's like having a rocket launch program.  Like NASA or SpaceX.  Except a lot cheaper, more fun and not so time-consuming.  People can also fly fire balloon fleets - YouTube - Sky Lanterns - Or launch party balloons from scenic locations.  Or play party balloon bocce ball or original starship trooper.  Or fly-by of primary venue when balloons soar overhead.  To get serious share the wealth.  Can also launch from anywhere there is a clear path to the sky.  Less wind the better.  Can also find wind blocks or protected area or walk the balloon downwind.  

Also check out the YouTube videos - keywords -  candle hot air balloonfire balloon  -  ufo balloon  -  wow hot balloon  - sky lantern
- Plus - SCROLL BELOW - FOR LOTS & LOTS OF INFORMATION ON FIRE BALLOONS - Including balloon science, theory and design.  Plus actual flying models.

BUY  SKY  LANTERNS - "Soar High and Travel Far" - Flying Lanterns were originally invented in China close to two thousand years ago for military communications.  Plus to warn the people about enemy attack.  Plus for holidays.  To light the path from heaven to earth.  Nowdays balloons fly all around the world by the millions.  Purchase sky lanterns on both - eBay and Amazon - for only two or three dollars apiece.  Plus fireworks stores.  Internet suppliers include domestic importers, China and Thailand.  Load up the pickup truck.  For lots of real cheap flights.

Domestic internet sky lantern supplier -  www.skylighter.com - Flying Lanterns!  - Plus lots of other cool stuff.  

So nowdays people do not even have to build their own fire balloons anymore.  Just buy them and fly them.  Buy beaucoup stock and store.  Which is convenient too.  Especially to play balloon bocce or fly fire balloon fleets.   Then scope out the situation and go for launch.  Like some sneaky pete or paper air force camptown rat.  Figure the flying lanterns to climb into the slipstream for a five minute one click free flight.

Tired of making balloon payments in maintenance fees for a timeshare relief Vermont property you don't even use anymore? Stop letting timeshare scam companies blow hot air in your face and cancel your timeshare the guaranteed way with Timeshare Relief.  -- Then slowly holiday parade float water back pain goose down to the three phase neutral ground.  More fun than spud gun or tennis ball cannon barrel roll. For birthday party ideas or music concert tour or airshow fly-by rodeo cowboy bull lingo.  Then go running track one it and chase bank it down vest jacket.  Plus keep score too.  Hole-in-one bocce ball toss up parabola buys mucho dinero rounds of golf club balls and cocktail fruit drink specials. 

..   .   .   .   ..
.. .. . .... . .. ..

 

Paper and wax fire balloons have a long history in the West.  Going back to the Montgolfiers in 1783.  The French thought of them as a transformative tool for human thought.  Per Deist thinking.  Especially during the Balloon Craze Period.  The French Revolution Period from 1789 to Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 was a time of big ideas.  Some good.  Some horrible.  As expressed by Percy Shelley, who flew protest balloons over London Town in around 1812.  He wanted the Brits out of Ireland.  So he flew fire balloons to protest.  Meanwhile lots of other people were flying fire balloons too.  With their own ideas and declarations.   "This balloon..."

Sonnet - To a Balloon, Laden with Knowledge
by Percy Bysshe Shelley - (1812)

Bright ball of flame that thro the gloom of even
Silently takest thine etherial way
And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue Depths of Heaven
Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shall thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom
Whilst that unquencheable is doomed to glow
A watch light by the patriots lonely tomb
A ray of courage to the opprest & poor,
A spark tho' gleaming on the hovel's hearth
Which thro the tyrants gilded domes shall roar
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth
A Sun which oer the renovated scene
Shall dart like Truth where Falshood yet has been

Central Park -- Overflite's Home Base - Mostly flew after things got quiet.  Check weather for ambient temperature - wind speed & wind direction -  google nyc zip code - 10106 weather hour by hour
 NOTE - Wind direction is where the wind comes from.  As example North by North-West is written NNW.  But the balloons would travel in the exact opposite direction, ie South by South-East - SSE.

Models include Homemade Plastic Bag Balloon  &    Dry Cleaner Bag - Straw Boss Balloon
- Drinking straws are stuck together to make the X-frame.  Scotch tape flaps on the ends of the straws make it simple to tape frame to bag.  Engine is pinned to frame with three shirt pins.
- Typical birthday candle engine for Straw Boss is made with 24 of the 36/pack Cakemate candles.  Melted together with a fork.  Made double-file.  12 + 12 = 24 candles.  For cold weather only!
- Alternately balsa wood sticks can be tied together or taped together into an H-frame.  Specifications for Pic Balloon - 15 cubic feet - 1/3 mil pizza-cutter bag - H-frame balsa - single-file engine - w 44 candles - 24/pack type.

SEE WARNINGS - BALLOONISTS COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL FIRE BALLOONS - SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE INFORMATION

Can also be fun to play with the terminology.  Especially for group launches or flashmobs.  Back and forth between the launch commanders and ringleaders and crowd - google - youtube apollo 13 go for launch

"Apollo 13 Flight Controllers - Listen up - Give me a go or no go for launch" - Q - "...Are you go?" -  A - " We are no-go - one minute please." - "We are go - fly." - "We are go for launch."
Then later post-launch - "We have lift-off" - "Rocket is go" -- Plus other pretend rocket and exotic aircraft talk -  " Roger that." - "Right up the middle." - "In the pipe." - "Five by five." - "We have rocket" - "We have balloon."

VOTE OUT RECKLESS  OBAMIAN  SPENDING  -   Plus google - federal receipts - TAXPAYER MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC - 2010 - SEPTEMBER 9-12th - Also, remember to vote a straight Republican ticket this fall.  Vote out the Obamans.  No matter where in the country you live.  Or whatever your personal politics might happen to be right now.  It is very important.  Do not forget.  There are 500,000 offices at stake.  Meanwhile politick! Wake up to the fiscal crisis.  Get off the sidelines.  Take to the field.  Research.  Communicate.  Become an  army of one.  Preach fiscal responsibility.  Help vote out the progressives.  Help restore fiscal sanity and sound fiscal policy. The time is now.  Plus google - federal receipts - to see just how bad the proposed deficits and tax increases are going to be.  And if you are going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.  Remember go to the 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington DC - 2010 - Starts Thursday 09/09/10.  Ends Tuesday 09/12/10.


  . 

  


  

     

..... Parade float boat and passenger ship.  Music player video revolution. Revolutionary soldier camping tent.  Beans and bacon.   Down under the radar.  Bike by touring bicycle wheel.  Roll over the national international cheerleading squad.  Global competition brigade.  Titanic titan or Alexander or sneaky Peter the Great.  Up against the wall decor sword of the xenomorph.  Without ceremony.  By virtue of the authority.   Fly like an eagle.  Free freedom bird nest airline.  Five by five. Bronco billy club jack.  Clausewitz or Sun Tzu ground or Machievelli or Galileo telescope.  War protest. Newt Gingrich 2012. Sarah Palin 2012. Zeus Olympus Olympics Olympiad.  Jupiter or Apollo project or Saturn booster rocket or Mercury space capsule or Gemini spaceship capsule. Hit Homer or Aesop fable about or sly fox or black crow or tortoise or turtle or american eagle or billy goat or sheep or sheeple horse salamander or frog man mouse a lion a wolf pack.  Chicago Eu Spain Mexico Greece Potomac UK Germany Russia.  Get higher higher education standards. ..   .   .   .   ..
-- Hudson -- That's it man, game over man, game over! What are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
-- Burke -- Why don't we build a fire, sing a couple of songs! Why don't we try that?

-- Hudson --17 days?! - (until rescue ship arrives) - Hey man, I don't want to rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last 17 hours against those things!
-- Ripley -- Hudson! This little girl (Newt) survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.
-- Hudson- Why don't you put her in charge?

-- Ripley -- I feel like kind of a fifth wheel around here, is there anything I can do?
-- Apone -- I dunno, is there anything you can do?

---------------------------

-- Lincoln -- Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.
-- Lincoln -- If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
-- Lincoln -- If General McClellan isn't going to use his army, I'd like to borrow it for a time.
-- Lincoln -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
-- Lincoln -- Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-- Lincoln -- This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.  Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

-----------------------------

NOTE:  Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in the summer of 1816, in Switzerland, when she was 18 years old.  This was Volcano Summer 1816.  When winter never left. Meanwhile her housemate, Lorn Byron, created Dracula.  Thereby creating two of the greatest characters in science fiction and horror.  As one of the great crowning achievements in literary history.  Literally inventing both genres at the same time.

Meanwhile her brand-new husband Percy Bysshe Shelley was also famous as a great poet.  Previously he flew fire balloons over London Town.  This was in around 1812, when he was 20 years old.  To protest English colonial rule over Ireland.  Apparently he also attached sheets of his own writing.  Some might have been banned.  Shelley apparently also enclosed sheets of writing in bottles.  Then presumably floated them away or left them in places where they were likely to be found by friendlies.  This was a common method of protest at the time.

At the time Europe was recovering from the after-effects of the 1789 French Revolution.  Which caused chaos, class warfare and civil war for several years.  This lead to Napoleon.  Who conquered most of Northern Europe at one time or another.  Until he was finally beaten for good in 1815.  One year prior.  This 25 year disruption largely ended feudalism in Europe.  Which was characterized by most of the people living as peasants or serfs.  People were henceforth emancipated.  And were free to live their lives as they chose.    This was also the start of the industrial revolution.  People visualized new societies and wondered what they would look like and how they would be created.  It can be said to be the beginning of the modern period.  Which was characterized by the rise of the nation-state.  Most notably the creations of the nations of Germany and Italy.   

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley - (1792-1822) -- A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Love is free.  To promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed.  Such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due - dust claims dust - and we die too.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.
 
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - (1797-1851) -- Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of voice, but out of chaos.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- No man chooses evil because it is evil.  He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- What terrified me will terrify others.  And I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created.

-- Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus - (1818) -- Once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.
-- Frankenstein -- I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
-- Frankenstein -- Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him.  But I am solitary and detested.
-- Frankenstein -- If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear! -- Beware - for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.
-- Frankenstein -- Devil, do you dare approach me?  And do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?
-- Frankenstein -- With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries?
-- Frankenstein -- He is dead who called me into being.  When I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.

 -- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- The giant now awoke. The mind, never torpid, but never rouzed to its full energies, received the spark which lit it into an unextinguishable flame. Who can now tell the feelings of liberal men on the first outbreak of the French Revolution. In but too short a time afterwards it became tarnished by the vices of Orléans — dimmed by the want of talent of the Girondists — deformed and blood-stained by the Jacobins.

----------------------------

Sonnet - To a Balloon, Laden with Knowledge
by Percy Bysshe Shelley - (1812)

Bright ball of flame that thro the gloom of even
Silently takest thine etherial way
And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue Depths of Heaven
Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shall thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom
Whilst that unquencheable is doomed to glow
A watch light by the patriots lonely tomb
A ray of courage to the opprest & poor,
A spark tho' gleaming on the hovel's hearth
Which thro the tyrants gilded domes shall roar
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth
A Sun which oer the renovated scene
Shall dart like Truth where Falshood yet has been

--------------------------------------

Summary - When riding a motorcycle too fast into a hairpin turn there are basically two strategies about what to do:

Risky Strategy - Go over the top - Speed up and drop down into the turn and hope you don't hit sand or gravel or the rail or fence or curb or ditch.  If the bike crashes it will typically flip over in the opposite direction and fling the rider high into the air at high speed.  It is a very dangerous strategy.  But does sometimes avoid crashes.  By the amazing ability of the expert rider to manouver a high speed turn.  But the crashes are very spectacular and deadly too.  Typically both the bike and rider get completely destroyed.  This is what the Obamian Administration is doing right now.

Conservative Strategy - Prepare to drop the bike - Slow down for the crash as much as possible while still trying to make the turn and find an opportunity.  Then do everything possible to defend against the crash.  Typical move is to lay down the bike in towards the turn and then try to ride the bike like a sled for as long as possible.  Then to try to treat getting thrown off the bike like it is some kind of great leap forward.  And live to fight another day.  Possibly with a reasonably undamaged bike too.  This is what the Republicans and Tea Party is proposing to do.  For America to survive.  It is also the less dicey strategy of the two.
 
--------------------------------------

-- Tacitus -- A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.

-- Maximilien Robespierre -- The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

-- Napoleon Bonaparte -- When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

-- Leon Trotsky -- England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.

-- Saul Alinsky -- An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent ... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises ... The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them.

 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

- COOL VIDEO OF CANDLE POWERED HOT AIR BALLOON LAUNCH - google - wow hot balloon - or click here

- What Fire Balloons Can and Cannot Do

- History of Fire Balloons - w Links

- Web Links  -- Includes links to various plans for building paper hot air balloons.

---------------------------------

MODEL HOT AIR BALLOON SCIENCE

- Weight of Air Calculation, Heating and Hot Air Balloon Lift  - applies Gas Laws to model hot air balloons.

- Mathematical Models for Candle Balloon Design  - builds a system of geometric models for approximating candle balloon heating.  Suggests how many birthday candles to use for different volumes.

- Aerostatic Design Principles for Paper Hot Air Balloons!! -- Applies Geometry, Algebra, and Scaling, to build formulas and methodologies for calculating theoretical specifications for both plastic and paper model hot air balloons.

- Volume Calculations for Cylinder Shaped Balloons  includes a table for different bag sizes.  It also describes Scaling, ie. the geometry for changes in dimensions, volume and surface area for equivilently shaped objects.

- Hot Air Balloon Laboratory -- School Science Project Lesson Plan  heats a dry cleaner bag balloon, with a hot air popcorn popper.  Measures temperature and lift.  Applies the mathematics for Gas Laws.

- Computerized Simulation of Candle Balloon Design & Heating - Developed by Dan Freeland from the Czech Republic.

Traditional Paper Fire Balloons or Montgolfiers (In Italian) -  have been flying ever since the invention of the manned hot air balloon, by the Montgolfier Brothers, in 1783.  In the United States they were known as Fourth of July Balloons and were part of American Folk History, of the 19th and early 20th Centuries.  Likewise, fire balloons are also a part of World History.
 
--------------------------------

People still fly paper fire balloons in a number of places around the world, mainly for Festival of Lights Celebrations.  In  Brazil - (2) people balloons fly in June.  In Italy people balloons fly in September.  In  Greece people fly balloons for Easter.   In  Buddhist countries people fly balloons in October, to celebrate Buddha's return from Heaven and to light the path from heaven to earth.

During World War II French Resistance Fighters apparently launched paper fire balloons.  In French, "Foo" means either fire or fool. Many of the Foo Fighter Sightings - (2)  seem a lot like fire balloons too.  Also, on February 25, 1942, it appears a Japanese submarine might have maybe launched hydrogen balloons, with flares attached, to trigger The Battle of Los Angeles.

Dry cleaner bag fire balloons were also inspired by Kenneth Arnold's 1947 UFO Sighting.   They were then popularized by a Popular Science Magazine that included instructions on how to build a miniature hot air balloon with a dry cleaner bag, wire, cotton and lighter fluid.  Here is a first-person acdount of one of those early UFO balloons.  Meanwhile enterprising young inventors invented the birthday candle balloon too.  And inventors are still inventing the birthday candle balloon today. See YouTube.

- ABC TV News Report -- July 17, 2001 -- Strange Lights over New Jersey - & Possible Explanations
- 1970s UFO Sightings -- News Article - Overflite Dry Cleaner Bag Fire Balloons 

- Police Chopper Attacked by UFO in Kentucky -- Couple Confesses to Launching Dry Cleaner Bag UFO Fire Balloon --

- For Sale: Slightly Used UFO -- Needs New Candle -- Contact the Sheriff --
- Police Say Some UFO's are Fire Balloons with Candles  --
- UFO Reports and Pranks Continuing... --

- Homepage for Larry Robinson -- UFO Debunker --

- National UFO Reporting Center --Homepage -- UFO Reports Database --
- Roswell II? -- Reports from the Ongoing UFO Craze in Rockford, Illinois --


Fire Balloons!  Materials, Construction and Design

Classic dry cleaner bag balloons are made with thin half-mil "dress bags," 4 1/2 feet tall, weighing 6/10th of an ounce.  Taller half-mil bags also work, but are hard to find.  Nowdays most dry cleaner bags are 3/4 mil thickness, and weigh too much to fly.  Sometimes hobbyists tape two dry cleaner bags together to make a larger bag.  In warm weather, dry cleaner bag balloons tend to hover at first, with very little net lift.  At high elevations, dry cleaner bag balloons may not fly at all.

"Large Envelopes," in different sizes and shapes, can be made with thin plastic sheeting.  Look for 1/3 mil (8 micron) high-density plastic sheeting.  Welds are made with a heated pizza cutter, on top of  a wooden board.  It is amazing how well this system works!  Scotch tape repairs any weak spots.  To stabilize the balloons, the bags are tapered, and small ventilation holes are made.  This provides "negative draft," which helps to reduce the de-stabilizing effects of  "billowing."

"H-Frames" are made by tying three balsa wood sticks together with string.  Alternately "X-Frames" can be made by sticking drinking straws into each other, and pinning two sets together with a shirt pin.  But ... the "H-Frame" and balsa wood design is more advanced.  Optionally, an "H-Frame" design can be built with drinking straws.

Engines are made by melting birthday candles together with a heated fork.  Alternately, dripped wax can melt the candles together.  The most efficient engines are single-file.  They get maximum oxygen and cooling area.  To conserve space, engines can also be made double-file.  Here two single-files are melted together.  Melted wax holds the engine to the frame.

Technologically advanced balloonists can apply the information to design large volume Christmas Candle Balloons, or Homemade Candle Balloons, which can burn for around forty minutes.  Candle Powered Paper Hot Air Balloons can also be designed.  For more detailed information on design and construction -- Stay tuned!

NOTE:  For any type of experimental fire balloon, it is not a good idea to rely too much on an outside heat source.  Otherwise a too-heavy balloon might climb up at first, then land, risking a crash and burn.

------------------------------------ 

Fire Balloons!  Warnings and Cautions:

Once a fire balloon gets launched it becomes completely uncontrollable.  It can't be recalled.  Fire... flying through the sky.  You had better hope it has a successful flight.  If it crashes and starts a fire and the police get involved then it is important to confess.  Since it can only get worse if the police have to track you down.  But balloons that crash in trees that go out?  Forget about it.  Also to remember that the sky does not catch on fire.  So hope the balloons go up really really high.  Then burn out.  Then they are safe.  Since nothing happened.

People under eighteen years old should have parental permission to fly powered model hot air balloons.  Remember that fire balloons might be considered to be fireworks, and potential fire hazards.  Do not use any fuel that does not easily blow out.

 Do not fly fire balloons in any fire danger areas, especially if they are hilly or mountainous, or if it is windy or gusting.  Do not fly any faulty or damaged fire balloons.  Avoid Crash and Burns.  Balloonists are obligated not to cause any fire danger.  Also, fire balloons should not be made too large, in case they land directly in automobile traffic.

 The FAA prohibits operating any "Unmanned Free Balloon" in a hazardous manner, per FAA-DOT 101.7 -  The FAA also prohibits including any significant amounts of metal, on devices that fly to altitudes where there may be aircraft.  Do not fly wire frame fire balloons.  They can be dangerous to turbine engine aircraft.  They can also short-circuit electrical power lines.

Do not fly fire balloons near airports.  Especially avoid active takeoff and landing patterns. Avoid flying fire balloons near any other prohibited or restricted areas without permission, as appropriate, unless it is very late at night -- and doesn't matter.

Build flightworthy balloons, according to the conditions. Avoid flying fire balloons in winds above ten miles per hour, especially if gusting.  Avoid damaging balloons or crashing them into obstacles. Avoid antagonizing the police or neighbors.  Monitor the complete flight of every balloon.  Be responsible, and use good judgement.
Try to make every flight a success!.

As long as candle powered fire balloons don't crash and burn, there is not a big fire danger.  The plastic bag does not appear likely to become a serious hazard either, as long it isn't very large and it doesn't land directly in automobile traffic

-------------------------------------.

Fire Balloons launch best at sea level, in cool weather, with very little wind and no strong gusts.  For local windspeed, visit YAHOO WEATHER.  The calmest weather is generally early evening, late evening and dawn. At sunset and dawn, the red of the sun can make the balloons shimmer. For group launches try three balloons. "Best of Sights, Overflight."

NOTICE:  All Balloonists are warned that they build and fly Fire Balloons completely at their own risk, and that they are completely responsible for determining all risks, and for any consequences that result!

Remember, you are completely responsible for every balloon you fly!

 Instructions How to Build Dry Cleaner Bag Fire Balloons.  Included are balsa wood "H-frame" balloons, drinking straw "X-frame" balloons, and mixed component balloons.  Also included are specifications for the types of dry cleaner bags that can fly, and a list of supply houses.

 Instructions How to Build Homemade Bag Fire Balloons.  Only balsa wood "H-frame" balloons are included so far.  Stay tuned for information on a drinking straw frame balloons.

By Thomas Taylor -- balloons@overflite.com


The OVERFLITE STORE  Sells "Ready to Fly" Hot Air Balloons and Kits--
--Made by  Identified Flying Objects Ltd (IFO)

"Best of Sights, Overflight"

=========================