[Frank Colver]

BobK had asked me to post a topic on my home-built, foot launch, hot air balloon even though it isn't a hang glider. This is what I did after I quit hang gliding. I still wanted the joy of foot launch and foot landing like a hang glider. I didn't get around to this posting until a very nice woman, at Dockweiler last weekend, asked me about my balloon and I said i would post photos here. Sorry about that Bob.

I designed the base unit and Piccard Balloons Inc sewed the envelope for me. I received an experimental airworthiness certificate from the FAA and I got my private pilot license with hot air balloon rating. The envelope was about 40,000 cu ft., small by hot air balloon standards. The swing seat was custom made for me by Eipperformance. Some of you will remember who they were.

Since balloons were called aerostats in the early days I called mine the "Hangstat". I've come to learn recently that has become a generic term now for foot launch balloons. Wow - me and Thermos Bottle! I wrote an article that was published in the November/December, 1978 issue of Ballooning Magazine, the official publication of the Balloon Federation of America. I still have a copy but unfortunately the BFA doesn't have an archive that goes back that far. I put a scanned copy in my Dropbox, here is the link:

http://www.dropbox.com/sh/46r1ozsdufrmr ... 3xFRa?dl=0

Unfortunately i scanned two pages on one PDF page and one was upside down. So I've copied that page inverted to be able to read both halves.

I took a lot of photos from my balloon but have few of me flying it. A photographer named Ian Wright took the photos I have attached to this posting. The titles of the photos tell the story.

I haven't pulled out my flight log book in a long time so i don't remember how many hours I flew total but each flight was typically one hour. Two 8 gallon tanks of propane were good for about 1 1/2 hours on a cool winter morning. I had many flights of different experiences just has hang glider pilots do. The down side was not getting to sleep in on a flying day. Another problem was every flight is a cross country flight so a chase vehicle/person is always needed. Since I was flying a single place balloon I couldn't reward that person with a ride in my balloon. Eventually i ran out of chase crew and that pretty much ended my ballooning hobby after about ten years.

BTW - Notice the "Colver variometer" mounted on an upright in the photos. It was very useful for ballooning along with a Thommen altimeter. The only other instrument was a temperature meter (that I made) that measured the temperature at the top of the balloon. One usually wanted to keep it below 300 deg F.

Frank Colver

Early morning sky.jpg (182.96 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

Flying in a group.jpg (187.79 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

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Inflation.jpg (244.25 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

Initial inflation.jpg (190.2 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

Looking over Parris Valley.jpg (135.11 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

Reading in flight magazine.jpg (193.34 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

Flying my foot launch balloon 1 - Hangstat.jpg (142.23 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

remembering a beautiful flight.jpg (303.02 KiB) Viewed 3438 times

[Frank Colver]

I should have mentioned, for those of you who might have noticed, I always flew with a helmet. I'm wearing my Greek Fisherman's Hat in these photos at the request of the photographer, Ian Wright.

My ballooning helmet was actually my former hang gliding helmet.

Frank Colver

[Bob Kuczewski]

Those pictures are amazing, historic, and beautiful!!!!

Thanks for sharing that snippet of history, Frank!!!!!!

[Frank Colver]

Thanks Bob!

An interesting factoid: When inflating the envelope, with the hand burner, I had to insulate the metal pipe/handle of the burner. Not because it got hot (which it didn't) but because the movement of the hot air and the flame from the burner into the balloon would build up a high static electric charge between the air in the balloon and the burner in much the same manner as a building cumulus cloud builds up a lightning charge. If one brought a grounded wire near the pipe of the burner you could get a big arc to the wire.

One time, when it started raining while I was still standing on the ground with the balloon inflated overhead. I not only noticed that I was not getting wet, I could see the raindrops being deflected away from the envelope of the balloon by the electric charge. The drops were not hitting the balloon either!

I spoke with other balloonists who said they got shocks when inflating their balloons.

I used an electronic temperature probe at the top, wired to a meter on the framework. I was killing the probes at a rapid pace until I realized what was happening and then shielded and grounded them to the framework.

Frank

BTW - Because my aluminum framework formed a pyramid I had to endure a lot of "pyramid power" jokes.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Because my aluminum framework formed a pyramid I had to endure a lot of "pyramid power" jokes.

Pyramids are made of triangles, and triangles are powerful shapes in engineering.

In fact, my recent work has involved triangles and tetrahedra (close cousins of pyramids) for use in simulations. Here's a simple surface example:

tree.png (23.97 KiB) Viewed 3389 times

And of course, triangles are used almost everywhere in ... hang gliders!!

[Frank Colver]

Bob, that looks very much like the wood skeleton of a teddy bear cholla cactus. When I'm at my desert cabin next week I'll find one to photograph for you.

BTW - Richard Miller once told me that he was fascinated by the strength and weight characteristics of truss structures in explaining why the truss cross strut on his bamboo Rogollo design. Also note his use of a truss structure seen in photos of his Conduit Condor at the 1st Otto meet (I don't have a copy of that).

Of course a truss is just a long series of triangles between two beams.

Here is a photo from 1971 of my son Matt and Ernest Feher with their version of Miller's Rogollo design. This also flew at the 1st Otto meet, with some towing help from their friends.

Frank

[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks for posting that historic photo Frank!!!!

The early 1970's now seem like such a time of innocence compared to the world of today.

This is a "beam" that I've been working with to fill volumes for simulations:

beam.png (6.48 KiB) Viewed 3382 times

In this case, each triangle is the face of a tetrahedron that fills the interior space of the "beam". This is used to subdivide a volume for simulations of each section within the larger volume. For a rectangular space like this, cubes might be a better choice, but we'll be mostly modelling things that are not this regular.

It's not quite the same as a truss, but since I happened to be working on it just yesterday, I thought it was worth a post.

Of course, when you fill a volume ....

volume.png (26.71 KiB) Viewed 3382 times

    ... things get much messier!!!