If you’re near Akron, Ohio, message me. I can’t promise a flight, but I can get you up close and personal.

Anywhere else, Google “hot air balloon repair station”. Those guys work on every balloon within a hundred miles of them, and can point you in the right direction.

Technically unlimited, but with an exponentially increasing annual registration fee.

I rejected a window cubicle because the view was stressful and I avoid glass elevators, but that’s really it.

You’re describing one of my pilots. Seriously. Guy won’t climb past the third rung on a ladder, but flies a balloon.

I recognize the anxiety you’re describing, and I can’t promise that you won’t experience it on a balloon flight but… I crew on about 100 flights a year, 6 passengers per flight, most first-time flyers. When I say it’s a different experience, I’m not talking about mine. I’m basing that on the more-than-a-few conversations I’ve had with people who have described themselves as afraid of heights.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re interested in balloons, the community has room for you.

Well, you can show up with zero knowledge of ballooning, and the pilot will be grateful for your help. Ballooning is hands-on, blue-collar flying; there is a fair bit of manual labor involved.

At the other end of the spectrum, experienced crew might be charged with pretty much the entire operation of the balloon until it leaves the ground, and as soon as it touches down again, as well as driving/navigating the chase vehicle, landowner relations, weather observation. They can also participate (under pilot or repairman supervision) in inspections, maintenance, minor and major repairs, and all sorts of other ancillary tasks.

As for the pilot, there are all sorts of considerations. For example, the wider the difference between ambient temperature and envelope temperature, the more lift we can produce. But, we have a maximum allowable envelope temperature, so if it hot out, we can’t get as wide of a temperature delta, and can’t reach as high of an altitude. We can’t steer except by changing altitude. Do we have enough lift to reach the altitude layer with favorable winds?

On the flip side, the surface winds often differ significantly from the winds aloft, but if we are within 2000 feet of an obstruction, we have to maintain 500 feet above it. We’ve got a good direction toward a favorable landing zone right now, at treetop level but there is a 1000’ tall antenna tower in front of us. When we climb, where are the winds going to take us?

I expected winds from 270, but the actual winds are from 315, taking me much further right than I had originally planned. Can I continue this flight? Do I need to descend below the floor of the outer ring, or can I stay up high? Do I need to land as soon as practical?

There is a beautiful field in front of us, but a quarter mile ahead, there are high tension wires. If I abort a landing into this field, do I have the climb performance to clear those wires?

I want to get low over the lake and trees for some good pictures, but the nearest landing site past the lake is 6 miles, and sunset is in 90 minutes. Do I have the time and fuel to descend and play, or do I have to stay high and fly on?

It gets more interesting when we introduce competition flying, where you’re trying to reach specific points at specific times, or make the sharpest turn the winds will allow, or grab prize money from the top of a pole, or chase a leader with a head start.

The “what and where” requirements are easy to enforce. If a drone goes out of control and strikes a person, it was clearly in violation of a rule against flying over people.

“Return home” is a good start, but it is not enough. The feature set also has to include “see and avoid”. If it can decide to “return home” directly into the side of a manned balloon, it is not safe enough for unrestricted autonomous operation.

I say this as a balloon pilot who has observed drone pilots operating in the vicinity, and even attempting to land on top of a manned balloon.

In regular balloons, the sides of the basket are about waist-high. You’re well contained. I get pretty nervous on a ladder or apartment balcony, but I’ve never felt any height-related anxiety in a balloon.

You don’t actually have to fly to enjoy the sport. Crewing is fun by itself. Commercial operators pay pretty well. Private pilots will usually buy you dinner after a flight.

There are sectional charts on the ground, available to the general public, not just licensed pilots. If you’re going to fly, you are expected to know the relevant airspace long before you fly in it.

Flight planning.

You presume a scenario where you make this realization while you are in the air. In practice, you made this realization hours earlier, and adjusted your flight plan to avoid that problem. You selected a launch site that avoids putting you in that situation.

If I do find myself encroaching on controlled airspace, I could declare an emergency, inform the controller where I am so they can vector traffic away from me, and do what I need to do to get down safely. At the very least, I would expect to do a lot of paperwork, and possibly have my license suspended.

With Class B and C airspace, the boundary is altitude dependent. The outer ring of Class C is 10 miles from the airport. I can fly between 5 and 10 miles of Akron Canton Airport, I just can’t climb above 2500’ MSL while in that area. I generally plan my flights to stay outside 10 miles, with the understanding that I can just stay below their airspace if I happen to get too close.

That’s true, but “not knowing” is a far more egregious violation. Licensed or not, a pilot is expected to know where they are allowed to fly, and where they actually are. “I didn’t know it was restricted” is the aviation equivalent of driving the wrong way on the freeway.

Sectional Charts are freely available from the FAA in digital form, and cheaply (<$10) available on paper. They have a legend that shows how controlled airspace, congested areas, and airports are depicted, along with more than enough landmarks for orientation. Every pilot, licensed or not, must know where they can and cannot fly their aircraft.

Exactly. I don’t have a problem with artists profiting from their work. I don’t have a problem with their temporary exclusivity. The problem I have is when they never intend for that work to belong to the people; when they think they can maintain control over an idea long after it has become “culture”.

For the problem you mention, I would suggest that any studio who has been offered the work during the five year period owes royalties for a 5-year period after the studio publishes the work, even if it has since entered the public domain. Something along those lines would likely become a standard clause between the screenwriter’s guild and the studios, and doesn’t necessarily need to be enacted in law.

I wouldn’t be opposed to a longer period for some major works. Start with a standard, 5-year period from the time of original publication, then allow an extended copyright registration with an exponentially increasing annual fee. A few additional years would likely be affordable. The fifth, possibly. The sixth, only for the most profitable franchises, and the seventh being a large fraction of the national GDP. If James Cameron wants to pay for the entire military establishment through the proceeds of Avatar III, he can get one more year of protection.

I don’t really care to fight about what the original intent of copyright is,

Then you can get bent.

Art and invention benefit the whole of humanity. A work whose sole beneficiary is its creator does not qualify as art or invention, and deserves no protection.

The purpose of copyright is to promote science and the useful arts. The purpose is to get art and inventions into the public domain. The purpose is not “to get artists paid”. Getting them paid for their works and discoveries is the method by which copyright achieves its purpose. It is not the purpose itself.

If they are only interested in keeping their works proprietary; if they are uninterested in pushing them into the public domain, they are not achieving the purpose for which copyright exists. They do not qualify for copyright protection. They can get bent.

My first thought (which probably isn’t the best method, but I’ve done similar before) is an Arduino between the mouse and the system. The Arduino normally just passes the mouse commands to the system, but it listens for the button and blocks movement if it sees the button press.

Because it’s all done in hardware, this method would be system-agnostic. You could plug it into anything.

I used a Teensy 3.6 for a similar project.

Balloons will fly with an awful lot of holes in them. Even with a 20’ vent hole in the top, they take awhile to deflate.

You’d have to hit the pilot or the tanks.

True. The main airspace restrictions on ultralights that are not on certificated aircraft are a prohibition against flying over congested areas (yellow on a sectional chart), and within the lateral boundaries of Class E airspaces around airports. (You can’t fly an ultralight in the class E airspace around an airport, nor in the Class G airspace underneath that Class E)

Certificated aircraft (including balloons) can be flown over congested areas and within Class E and G airspaces.

The limitations on flight in A, B, C, and D airspaces are similar for both: flight is prohibited without specific authorization arranged beforehand.

Interestingly, if an ultralight somehow received permission to enter Class E(controlled) airspace, they still cannot descend into the Class G (uncontrolled) below it. That Class G is within the lateral boundaries of the Class E, and the controller’s authority does not extend to that airspace.

Those $23,000 balloons will be certificated aircraft, and will need a licensed pilot, even though they might otherwise qualify as ultralights.

Most ultralight cloudhoppers are homebuilt envelopes with commercial burners and fuel systems. Material cost in the neighborhood of $5000.

My used, complete, certificated system (not a cloudhopper; a regular hot air balloon) was $10,000, including envelope, basket, burners, tanks, fan, trailer, instruments, and a bunch of accessories.

Pretty much, yes.

Our burners consume raw, liquid propane, at 150PSI to the blast valve. Normally, when liquid expands into a gas, the temperature drops precipitously, and with it, the pressure. However, we feed that liquid propane into a heat exchanger: the coils at the top of the burner. This superheats the propane, allowing it to vaporize easily and rapidly after it passes through the nozzles on the burner ring.

The end result is a 30’ flame.

You’d want to fashion some sort of sling and stock to handle that burner without its usual frame but it’s certainly doable.

Licensed balloon pilot here… The only manned balloon for which you don’t need a license (in the US) is an ultralight, weighing less than 155lbs empty.

They do exist, though. They’re commonly called “cloudhoppers”. They are basically a climbing harness, backpack straps on a propane tank, and an overhead flamethrower, all hanging underneath a pup tent.

Edit: you can increase the weight to 254lbs empty if instead of a “balloon”, you build a “thermal airship”. Balloons are considered unpowered aircraft because they have no source of propulsion, only lift. Throw some source of propulsion on board - a small electric fan, for example - and it becomes a “powered” aircraft with a higher weight limitation.

I prefer the “chaos” scenario.

I strongly prefer the “chaos” scenario.

I think that the best chance we have for defeating Trump in November is by energizing the base. I think that Kamala - while certainly qualified - is the boring, expected candidate.

With Biden in the race, the DNC convention is going to be nothing more than three memes that will be forgotten in a week. With Kamala, 5 memes. It’s a nothing burger; a waste of time and campaign funds.

But, if we go in to the convention with Kamala on the bottom of the ticket, and the top vacant, the DNC turns into a media frenzy. We come out of it with a new, mostly unknown candidate who will be winning news cycles for weeks as the media tries to figure out what to make of them.

Chaos Candidate/Harris, 2024.

Do you know how many problems would be solved if the nation wasn’t run by workaholics, but by people who expect to retire at a reasonable age, while they still have some life to live?

57 is the oldest we should elect a president to their first term, so they are done with gainful, serious work by the age of 65. The only work someone over 65 should be doing is profiting from enjoyment of a useful hobby.