I often dream that I am flying. Every time this particular dream is so pleasant, so calm and soothing, it always wakes me up smiling, having a silly mood of happiness and joy. In the dream, up there, close to the clouds, I feel free, confident, calm, simply happy and indifferent to all the problems of humanity. I’ve always wanted to fly with a hot air balloon, and it’s still on my to-do list. If I were a man, that’s how I would propose to my girlfriend to marry me. Yesterday, as I was hanging the new curtain in the bedroom, I saw a beautiful yellow air-balloon up in the sky. I was thinking, oh how lucky they are! I want that too…
If you dream that you are flying, it is said that it is a sign of luck and long life, and if you rise into the sky it is a sign of honors (a wise old man told me). I have read that ballooning is the oldest sport that involves flying. The capacity of a hot air balloon does not exceed 500 kilograms (I fit) and consists of a huge tire (the balloon itself), a platform made initially of wicker, later of durable and very light synthetic materials, connecting ropes, and a burner that aims to keep the air in the balloon at the desired temperature. The basic principle is very simple: warm air, being lighter and having a much smaller mass than the cold, rises. In order to rise, a balloon needs 65,000 cubic meters of hot air.
On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters made a 45-minute flight in a homemade airship made of an ordinary chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons. The aircraft rose to an altitude of 4,600 m. During the landing, the aircraft became entangled in power lines, but Walters was able to safely climb down. The flight attracted worldwide media attention and inspired a later movie and imitators 😉 Larry had often dreamed of flying but was unable to become a pilot in the United States Air Force because of his poor eyesight. He first thought of using weather balloons to fly at age 13, after seeing them hanging from the ceiling of a military surplus store. Creative, right? 🙂
If you wanna learn how to fly with helium balloons, you can check on clusterballoon.org. It might be an interesting idea 😉
