Inflight Icing

[Glidergeek]

Copied off of Rec.aviation.soaring Thought it was funny.

"Some may find this interesting.
Today as I drove home in a snowstorm, three large objects fell from the sky onto the street in front of me. I stopped to see what they were. They turned out to be three metalized Mylar toy balloons encased in ice!

Darned kids probably didn't get a weather briefing before launch".

[low rider]

Nothing to do with ice but a balloon. Flying along minding my own business at about 11.5 or so , I look forward and think , wow , what kind of heli is that ?it's real close and I miss it by about 100 ft. No swerve on my part as there was no time. As I go by what at first glanse was a heli turns out to be a silver balloon about the size of a large truck ...... Spooky.....

[Emory Bored]

Nothing to do with ice but a balloon. Flying along minding my own business at about 11.5 or so , I look forward and think , wow , what kind of heli is that ?it's real close and I miss it by about 100 ft. No swerve on my part as there was no time. As I go by what at first glanse was a heli turns out to be a silver balloon about the size of a large truck ...... Spooky.....

My balloon story is tooling along at about 8500 in California's central valley and seeing myself on a collision course with a----OMG------what is that----ehhhhhhhh!! It was an ordinary party type helium balloon; black or dark blue and went right over the top of the cockpit. I don't know why the prop didn't break it, but that's what happened.

[skiermanmike]

Man... To live outside the city... We get balloons on a regular basis in the LA basin. I think the highest I've seen 'em is about 10k or so.

[Grassstrippilot]

Steve with the Highlander (Taildgrfun I think) shows on his DVD where he will blow up a balloon, throw it out the window, do a 180, and try to pop it with the prop. He slows it down to slow motion and you can see the balloon distort as it passes between the propeller blades...emerging intact. Pretty cool!

[Emory Bored]

Steve with the Highlander (Taildgrfun I think) shows on his DVD where he will blow up a balloon, throw it out the window, do a 180, and try to pop it with the prop. He slows it down to slow motion and you can see the balloon distort as it passes between the propeller blades...emerging intact. Pretty cool!

Kool. Now I know why.