Balloons

Unidentified flying objects--making the world a better place. What this man saw was a UFO. Not an alien space ship, but a Something he couldnt identify. What he saw was what I/we call a fireballoon. A small(relative to real hot air balloons) balloon made of plastic trashbags and powered by a group of candles. Sure they dont sound that exciting... But they are!!! Make your own and launch it and you will understand why...

Ok, I finally finished the instructions. I really doubt anyone cares, but I'm on a role here. If there are any holes in the instructions, or they don�t make sense, use your head. Feel free to experiment with stuff. Hell, I was able to figure out to build these things without instructions, so you should be able to as well. You can see a couple pictures elsewhere on my site...

Materials

1. Nothing important to do
2. Courage(imagine: jumping into a strangers yard so you can climb over rose bushes, up a tree, and put out a quickly growing fire while hoping the dogs in the yard don�t have rabies and the owner doesn�t come out and shoot you)
3. Scissors
4. Plastic Bags (you need really really cheap crappy plastic bags. Go to the store and look for the thinnest I think the thinnest I've found at the store are 9 or 10 micrometers thin. More recently, I�ve found some even thinner bags... I don�t know how thin they are, but they are the crappiest bags (as far as carrying garbage goes) I�ve ever dealt with. I found them at my local high school.)
5. Birthday candles (if you want to start a forest fire, go for the ones that are hard to blow out!)
6. An iron (or some metal object capable of heating itself or easy being heated)
7. (3/32) inch square balsa. Straw or anything else thin and light will do as well
8. Scotch tape
9. super glue(or any other non heavy glue)
10. brain
11. a friend (you need someone to help you shoot this off, and it�ll be funner if you have one anyways)
12. a spool of thread (optional, if you want to tether this thing)

Instructions

1. Take your scissors and plastic bags and start cutting! Cut the bottom off a trash bag then make a slit down its side. These should be made relatively straight, or your balloon will look weird. Looking weird isn�t all that bad, But a weird looking balloon will have reduced volume, increased weight, and other bad stuff. I�ve had weird looking balloons that wont take off, even though they shouldn�t. Anyways....
2. Make 4 of these bags. They should produce 4 2'*4' sheets of plastic. If they don�t, then cut them down, or scale then up, or just make a different balloon.
3. Iron these 4 sheets together. Use a 1-2cm overlap to iron on. You don�t have to use an iron, but I haven�t found anything else that works. Iron these bags in to a plastic sheet that is 4'*8'.
4. Your Balloon will be 4 feet tall. Think about it. 4 feet. This means you fold your huge plastic sheet in half and iron the two unconnected sides together.
5. You now should have a huge looking trash bag. Check it for holes! Hop inside and enjoy (as seen in the picture on the original fireballoon page.) Don�t kill yourself though. Dead people can�t start forest fires...
6. Now, its time to taper the bag. After you do this, you shouldn�t be able to fit inside. Why do we taper the balloon?!!! SO the frame at the bottom doesn�t have to be so big, which makes it more fragile Your balloon should look like this(there are also real pictures at the bottom):

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   Yeah, I know the pic sucks... See some of the pictures of the real fireballoons elsewhere on this site and check out their taper. Just a rule of thumb, make the opening at the bottom 20cm(or larger) across (when the balloon is flattened.) Start tapering about 10cm down from the first seam in the bag. Alright. Now all you have to do is make a frame.

7. Measure the length of half the circumference of the hole. This should be pretty easy if you have the balloon laid out flat, as shown in the crappy picture. Multiply this by (root of 2)/(2.) This gives you the length of the sticks you need for the X frame. Get two sticks (I use balsa) this length, and glue them together at the center.
8. The next step is the engine. I use candles for my engines. You might be able to use modified lighters if you are really ambitious, but I find that they weigh too much. Start by using 9-10 birthday candles. 9-10, works in NM, so 9-10 should work everywhere. To attach these candles, use scotch tape and melted wax. First tape the candles together. Then take another candle, and drip melted wax from it on the original candles. Make sure all of the candles are bonded together pretty well, but don�t add to much weight. If you add too much just melt it off.
9. Now the candles need to be attached to the frame. Wax doesn�t glue to anything very well, so I recommend melting them on. Melt the bottom end of the candles a little bit with the iron, then push the balsa frame into the moldable wax. Then, proceed to melt some more wax on top of it. All of this frame stuff isn�t that hard, but I�ve managed to screw up, so you might too. Your balloon is now basically finished. Attach the frame to the bottom of the balloon. I do this by cutting small holes near the bottom of the balloon, putting the frame in, and adding a little scotch tape to keep the frame from falling out.

And that�s it! You have a balloon! Now go launch it! I recommend you use three people to launch it. Two hold the corners, and one gets on the ground and lights it. If it�s little windy, have some one hold the bottom of the balloon away from the flame. Once the balloon is full of hot air, just start walking along with it till it lifts off. I have gotten these things to take off during the summer at 4000 feet so it should be pretty easy to do elsewhere. If you want longer flights, use slower burning candles. I've heard of people using tea candles at sea level! You might be able to get one to fly for hours!

REMEMBER: These things can start fires if you make them inncorrectly, or launch them in bad conditions. Even in good conditions(no wind/rain) they might start a fire, so launching themafter vast quantities of precipitation is optimal. Furthurmore, these things are probably illegal... but as long as they dont show up on radar(dont make one out of a radar reflecting material), you probably wont go to jail(stealth balloons). If you are lucky, you might get your town to believe it was an actual alien spaceship they saw. If you make the local news, email me cause YOULL BE MY HERO! Some suggestions for alien appearances: Launch several balloons that are attatched somehow. For even more fun, make you own candals, and dip the wicks in certain chemicals for colors. And remember, you haven�t lived till you�ve nearly committed arson!