overflite

VIKING FUNERAL BALLOON - w Crown Design Engine - burns up at the end to scatter the ashes

This is a concept balloon. Idea is for a paper balloon at around 1600 cubic feet. Powered by around 1000 birthday candles. With reasonably serious heating can figure a heat rise of around 100 F degrees and around 1/5 ounce lift per cubic foot . Or a pound of gross lift per 80 cubic feet. So total lift is around 20 pounds or 320 ounces. This makes the balloon around 15 feet in diameter. Surface area is around 800 square feet. So figure to use up around 5 pounds of paper. High quality 4 foot rolls of white tissue paper should work fine. And burn up well. Could even use newsprint and make a Newspaper Taxi. Personally I believe in four foot wide rolls and to forget about patching small pieces of paper together to get large pieces of paper. Unless absolutely necessary.

Can figure on roughly 1000 birthday candles for a 10-15 minute flight. Original weight is 24 candles per ounce. Or 40 ounces. Padded to 50 or 60 ounces. Add in another pound for a tic-tac-toe - pound-sign frame ( # ). This means the empty weight of the viking balloon is around 10 pounds. Leaving roughly 10 pounds for the payload. Which in this case is the ashes and funeral bier.

Could form the birthday candles into a double-file crown of 500+500 birthday candles. The candles are 1/4 wide. This would makes the engine roughly 3 feet in diameter. Which seems fairly cumbersome. But the funeral bier could go in the middle. Or could have concentric circles. Or a set of say 7 crown engines as pictured below. Which has roughly 144 birthday candles. Or could also do other configurations of candle-engines. Since each engine has so many candles they won't easily blow out. From there can add more engines to superheat the balloon. As example there is no particular reason why somebody can't use 2000 candles. Since paper does not melt and won't burn until Fahrenheit 451.

Flight time is around 10 to 15 minutes. Which should be long enough for the balloon to fly a mile or so out to sea. When the candles burn down the balloon should naturally burn up. Some artfulness may be needed to get the timing right so the balloon burns up and the ashes scatter as completely as possible. Into the wind, into the slipstream, over the sea. "From the sea we came and back to the sea we shall go."

Mostly figure launch time to be at sunrise. When the wind is usually most calm. Sunset launches could be problematic because wind is so common late in the day. But maybe that is best. Just wait for the right day. Can also figure to send up other balloons to accompany the viking balloon. Also can make the flight longer. Like say 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes. But this all adds weight. So could go for a larger balloon. Like say 2000 cubic feet. Or add some heat ponies or boosters for the first several minutes to build up heat quickly.

Can also launch from ships. Which can sail with the wind in the slipstream. Can also have group funerals. Or common funerals. For example on certain days of the year. Such as Day of the Dead or Ash Wednesday. Or Easter. Including both memorial balloons, honor guard and actual viking balloons. Can also have special launch places. Wherever the end of the earth is. And don't necessarily have to go over the sea. Or large lake. Deserts and wilderness areas should work too. Just stay away from any populated areas or fire danger areas and figure it out. Best way is to build and fly a practice balloon first. Can always work with scale balloons too. Which will prove design for the larger models. And to always have a backup and launch commander. Also need to get a launch clearance from the FAA too. Since the balloon is over 107 cubic feet. And is therefore government regulated. Per FAA/DOT 101.7

Most likely use of a balloon for any actual viking funerals will be for pets. Especially since the lower payload of ashes should enable the gross weight and size to be below 107 cubic feet.

Basic plan is to start small, under 108 cf, per FAA restrictions for unregulated free balloons. Once concept is established then scale up to 1600 cubic feet. Which I think is a nice sounding number. Otherwise could scale up through some perfect combination of Doubling, which is balloon mathematics. Unfortunately cubic feet does not work out, since the numbers would be 1024 or 2048 ie too small and too big. Perhaps liters could scale out better to create some perfect volume. Or could cheat and use math for a slightly altered scale.