BALLOON-JUMPING

Evening Star, Issue 18808, 5 December 1924, Page 4

BALLOON-JUMPING

GROTESQUE NEW SPORT. A new sport, for which great claims are made, has suddenly appeared in America, according to a writer in the London ‘ Daily Chronicle.’ It is_ “ baby ballooning,” a few dozen feet from the ground, attached to a small balloon about as big as a haystack, so readily portable that it can be carried, folded, on the back, like a pack. This “poor man’s ballooning” is rendered possible by the intensive development of the helium mines, the two largest areas of which are in Kansas and Texas, during the war, so that_ helium gas, hitherto enormously expensive, now costs only 3d a cubic foot. The buoyancy of the baby balloon is so carefully adjusted to the weight of the wearer —for wear it he docs, attached to belts round the chest —that it has t,ho effect of reducing his weight to a few ounces, without impairing, of course, his muscular capabilities. When you take a running jump on the ground your leg muscles have to raise a weight of lOst or 12st or so. That is why you do not rise very high. But picture where you would go if you had to raise only lOoz! That is what happens when you go out balloon-jumping at Lakehurst, New Jersey, or some of the other American aerodromes where pioneers have developed the techniques! the sport. It is extremely amusing to watch find indescribably exhilarating to play. A fat man, whose balloon capacity is properly -adjusted, rises light as a fairy. A mere touch of the toe sends him soaring over a 6ft fence. A very small jump sends him over a lofty oak or a house. An energetic spring may take him a good deal higher. As he now weighs only a few ounces, over and above what the helium lifting capacity takes care of, he comes gently down again, without any shock. If the wind rises while he is Wincing about he merely slips a small lead weight or two in his pocket, so that he will not be carried too far.

Even a baby balloon costs a good deal of money, of course, though a lot less than a real one. And it takes a lot of helium gas at 3d a cubic foot to fill it. Capital is now being raised, and it is likely that next summer the world will ring with the praises of this amusing defiance of the laws of gravity.