Have you ever wondered if equipped with enough balloons, a house could lift off the ground and float into the air like in the movie Up?
The National Geographic Channel has the answer: yes, yes it can.
At dawn this past Saturday morning, March 5, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16′ X 16′ house 18′ tall with 300 8′ colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high and reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet and flew for approximately one hour. The record will be part of a new NGC series called How Hard Can It Be? premiering Fall 2011.
That guy is really brave.
Photos by Stewart Volland, copyright 2011 National Geographic Channel.
