
Darn it....
....wrong story. Googled "Paris being well and truly launched" and wasnt what I expected.
The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) team is delighted to announce today that the launch of our Vulture 1 aircraft will take place on Saturday, 23 October. That date, of course, depends on the weather, but if it's a no-go on the day, we'll send the balloon skywards on the first available opportunity thereafter. Now …
Not usually a good combination... the little blighters are bad enough when they're flying straight and level, but coming down on you from sixty thousand feet? It'd be straight through the canopy!
Nonetheless - we want to see pictures!
(My 60" paper wing is currently undergoing reconstruction... a slight design error means the ribs need rethinking!)
I will - unhappily - be more or less next door for the lauch, well in Northern France. The least I will be able to do is raise a sympathetic glass of some liquid with a reddish hue in support.
It has been a fascinating and hilarious saga : with heroes, challenges, setbacks, rising to a triumphal conclusion. Well, we all hope so.
Best of luck for the maiden flight of this possible shuttle replacement.
Chris Cosgrove
get too frisky with the old "ooh look I've breathed a load of helium and talk in a funny voice" trick.
Firstly, a one off is fine, but ... do it too many times in a short space of time, and you don't get any oxygen into your bloodstream .. but the weird thing about breathing helium is .. it doesn't make you feel out of breath or anything ... you just start getting light headed and then pass out and bang your head on the workshop bench on the way down.
Not that I would know, as obviously I would not have done that ....
also, do not have a few too many beers and use helium to fill bin-bags .. and then let them off skywards with great long length of bog-roll tied to them .. which you set alight as they are about 100 foot up ... and watch them disappear .. flaming, into the night sky ... as the police will take a dim view of that sort of thing.
Not that I have done that either .. oh no.