David Blain - Helium Balloon Stunt

[GilpinGuy]

He's at 22,500 feet right now. He's about to jump to the LZ.


https://youtu.be/QwzvNAAqH3g

[Bailey Guns]

What am I missing here...besides he used balloons to go aloft? Is that really a big deal these days?

[GilpinGuy]

I thought it would have been cooler myself. When it was all said and done I was like, "Meh, ok".

He did go up 24,000 feet though. F-that.

[BladesNBarrels]

I am no expert and don't play one on TV.
That looked pretty adventurous to me.

[Gman]

Looked like a RASA mission to me.














(Redneck Aeronautics and Space Administration)

[Little Dutch]

That was cool. I felt a sense of elation when he landed.

[Irving]

He wasn't wearing a parachute for the first several thousand feet if it went down the way he said it was going to.

[buffalobo]

He released just before altimeter clicked to 25,000, call it 24,900 and was supposed to open chute around 7000.

I think if he had squirrel suit(or whatever its called) he may have been able to make it to planned touch down target.

Irving, if he didnt have chute for first few thousand feet where did he get it for last 20,000 feet? Or are you talking about on the way up?

[CS1983]

The chute was suspended. Part of the act was putting on the chute while in the air.

[Irving]

He released just before altimeter clicked to 25,000, call it 24,900 and was supposed to open chute around 7000.

I think if he had squirrel suit(or whatever its called) he may have been able to make it to planned touch down target.

Irving, if he didnt have chute for first few thousand feet where did he get it for last 20,000 feet? Or are you talking about on the way up?

Yeah sorry, I meant on the way up. He had it stashed in with the balloons. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I thought he said he was going to pull it down out of the balloons and put it on at around 5,000 feet on the way up.

[GilpinGuy]

He could have done a trapeze act or something before putting on the chute to make it a bit more exciting.

[buffalobo]

Other than getting to altitude using the ballons not much unique about it IMO.

[CS1983]

Well, just under 25k? with street clothes ain?t exactly nothing.

No flight suit, apparently no pre-flight oxygen, no helmet and continuous oxygen during free fall, etc. Not exactly an 8k? foot fun jump in Perris, CA.

[FoxtArt]

He's got nothing on lawnchair larry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight

When Larry did it, he didn't know what was going to happen. He just knew that Larry was finally going to fly today.

[Irving]

Blaine described it more as wanting to recreate an image in his mind of a child being raised up by balloons more than than a spectacular stunt. He had to add the danger stuff as mentioned above so it wouldn't be too boring.

[def90]

Yeah, he was on Joe Rogan a couple weeks ago going through all of the preparation he had to do for this stunt all the way from getting the FAA license for the balloon craft and learning how to fly it, to training for dealing with the oxygen issue to skydiving and so on. Basically he wanted to recreate the image of the childhood dream of holding on to a bunch of balloons and being lifted up in to the air until he got to an altitude that he would not be able to be seen with the naked eye from ground and then releasing and parachuting back down to the ground. The parachute was hidden up in the balloons and was not put on until he was somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand feet so there was a window in there here if something went wrong it could go bad. He has held his breath for something like 17 minutes before so you could see him using the technique where you breathe in from the tank short and fast and exhale long and deep to purge the CO2 in the lungs. Once he let go of the balloons he was basically holding his breath until back down to an altitude where he could once again breathe without issues.

Anyway, not really a visually scary stunt but it's still kind of cool.

[BladesNBarrels]

The back story makes this even more interesting.
So holding his breath didn't screw up his ear channels and equilibrium?
Way beyond my current health condition, or mental condition, for that matter.