When I first saw a post about this over at Neatorama, my first thought was a scene in the ancient movie “The Red Balloon”, where the kid floats away at the end hanging from a bunch of balloons. I may have only seen it once in primary school, but because the images from the movie are so persistent in my mind, it must’ve been shown multiple times.
John Ninomiya, who runs the www.clusterballoon.org website, says that same scene was what inspired a lifetime of ballooning for him, and his pioneering work in the field of cluster ballooning. According to Ninomiya, he’s one of six people in the world doing this, and the only guy in North America. And it looks like he’ll be flying at the Great Plains Balloon Race, right here in Sioux Falls, SD, next weekend! (June 8-10) That would be worth getting up at Oh-dark-thirty in the morning to go watch!
From a quick perusal of his site, it looks like the technology of the sport hasn’t advanced much since Larry Walters’ dramatic attempt in 1982. (was it that long ago? Man, I feel old!) Ninomiya uses standard — but very large — vinyl balloons for this, along with a harness designed for paragliders & other off-the-rack gear. Guess a pioneer has to make do with what’s available and custom fabricate the rest. It does look like Ninomiya takes a bit more of a scientific approach to it than Walters did; he carries ballast up with him to help control ascent & descent, and has a better method of loosing balloons (and reducing lift) than Walters and his pellet gun.