Giant Weather Balloon Meteorological Military 8' Dia. For Sale

---

NEW BALLOON FLIGHT PHOTO STORY FROM BRAZIL:

NOW INCLUDED: Email PDF fileballoon flight storywith full details of the equipment, safe launching, photos and recovery of a balloon flight. With this information you can launch and recover your own mission! The PDF file will be emailed to you after you purchase. (Copyright laws apply.)

$12.15 shipping on one balloon

$15.15 shipping on any quantity in the continental United States

HUGEWEATHER BALLOON (meteorological sounding balloon) ML-541A/AM.

Manufactured by Kaysam Industries in 1982. These balloons are military surplus and are in perfect condition as they are packaged in an air tight, sealed plastic bag. Each balloon weighs about 5 pounds.

This balloon CAN be inflated to 10 to 12 foot in diameter, however they start to look pretty good at about 5foot in diameter and will fly nicely at about 7 foot in diameter.How much can this balloon lift? With Hydrogen when inflatedto about 7-1/2 feet in diameter and it had almost 7 pounds of lift. The less gas you can use the higher it will fly. I think about 2 pounds of free lift is about right, that's what the guys in the link below used.

Recommended balloon flight links using my balloons, THANKS TO MY CUSTOMERS!

The photos were all taken on balloon flights where these militaryballoons were used. All rights reserved on the photos

Gemany:

Plus this nationally televised launch link (in German:)

Júlio César Guedes Antunes, Brazil:

Sunrise Soarobtained some incredible pictures of sunrise from 80,000 feet above the Texas Hill

Other flight links:

These balloons vary a little in weight averaging 2277 grams or 5 pounds each. A significant amount of the weight is the tail/apron and the stoppers used to inflate it and attach the payload. THE BALLOON SHIPPED TO YOU MAY WEIGH A LITTLE MORE OR LESS THAN THAT.

These balloons are great fun. Inflate one of these in your boss's office on his birthday, that would get everyone a raise! Great for events, (such as a balloon festival,) and promotions.They can be used as a means for ariel photography. Experiments using a balloon like this will not be forgotten. The math needed to figure the volume of cubic feet in this balloon at various diameters as well as the lifting capacity of Helium and Hydrogen are only a few of the reasons these balloons are so interesting. Please email me your experiences.

Buyer should be aware that these balloons are delicate (not because they are old but because of their nature being made of thin latex rubber) and need to be handled with care! Tree branches will pop them. Sharp stuff on the grass will pop them. Compressor hoses stuck inside them can pop them. You need at least two people to handle the balloon while you're inflating it, one to hold the air/gas supply hose and one to support the balloon while it fills. Regular air compressors will inflate this balloon but that would be my last choice because you need lots of air volume at low pressure, just the opposite of what most air compressors deliver(and you don't want to hold up a 5 pound balloon upfor an hour while it fills, your arms will fall off!) A yard leaf blower adapted down to about a 3/4" PVC pipe (duct tape, and sand the end edges smooth)will work great.

If you are careful you can probably reuse the balloon, however they are designed for one use.

It takes an entire tank of helium to fill one balloon giving it about 7.0 lbs of lift. (with therubber skirt on the bottom carefully removed). Thanks Justin! Note: This customer was looking for lifting capacity using 100% helium. If you are anchoring it and want it to look good, you can use helium to achieve lift off(plus a few pounds oflift) then addregular air, this will put your balloon, fully inflated,in the air for less money. If you're sending it a high as possible, you want it filled with a minimum amount of gas to do the lift-off because it will expand as it goes up and will eventually pop.

You don't have to fill these balloons with helium to have a lot of fun. My neighbor called the cops when he saw the balloon on the light pole (the one pictured.) (PLEASE DON'T HANG A BALLOON FROM ELECTRICAL WIRES.) He thought it was from the Air Force Test Range in Utah's western desert.

SHIPPING IN THE CONTINENTAL U. S.: Buyer pays $12.15 on 1 balloon, $3.00 more for a second balloon. $15.15 shipping onANY quantityin the continental United States, (I'll send you an invoice with the corrected shipping price if you buy more than 2 balloons.)One or two balloons will be shipped USPS Priority (medium or large flat rate box,) more than two will be shipped UPS.

INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING: Buyer paysUSPS Priority shipping cost plus $5.00 handling per balloon. The U.S. Postal Service has discontinued Surface shipping soUSPS Priority (6 to 10 days) shippingis the least expensive way to ship these balloons. Theshipping on 2 balloons (large flat rate box) is only slightly more than it is for 1 balloon. 's shipping calculator will give you the wrong shipping price for more than 1 balloon, (it will be less $ than what shows.) You can see the large flat rate box price at http://postcalc.usps.gov/and add the $5.00 handling per balloon if you want to figure the shipping cost. You can make the purchase and then wait for a corrected invoice. Oremail me for a shipping quote on two or more balloons, or if you go ahead and pay what showsI'll refund the difference through Paypal.

PAYMENT: Paypal or other

Please check out my other interesting items!

Thanks for looking and buying! Dale PTL

Details, notes, emails:

Colorful sunrise photo (smaller yellow sun) courtesy of Jouni Juden, Finland

Bright white sunrise photo courtesy of Sunrise SoarTeam: David Gonzales II, Omar Mirza, Daniel Roper, Kevin Schmachtenberger, Mike Deep (It is their information that is included with your purchase.)

Filling nozzles and tail: The balloons fill from the top... since the skirt is on the bottom. A stopper ball with a heavy string attached to it lodges in the neck of the balloon. Another throat/stopper is at the bottom of the skirt except it's not used for filling the skirt as the skirt has a couple holes in it to self adjust to size and pressure. The stopper string coming out of the skirt can be used to attach a payload or tether the balloon. If you remove the tail, you can fly the balloon upside down and use the fill stopper string to attach your payload.

Negativecomments emailed to me from a buyer: "This balloon is no where near a 2200 gram balloon! It is misleading to describe it as such it's more like an 800 gram balloon in reality. The excess weight of the apron and the heavy stoppers greatly reduce this balloon lifting capacity. Cut off the stoppers and the apron including half it's attachment area and re-weigh. That's going to be a more realistic representation of this balloons capacity!" Another buyer's comments about this: "In response to the 800gram balloon complaint... I measured the balloon.
Description Mass (g)
Original Mass (aprox) 2200
Final Mass with Bag 1551
Bottom Nozzle with Bag 123
Latex Skirt 693
1428 Aprox. Balloon Mass without fill nozzle and stopper. (the assumption is that both bottom and top stoppers are about equal in mass")

Recent email from Marco in Switzerland:I bought the big army surplus weather balloon. I performed a HAB-Experiment flight with over the swiss alps this January the 16th. I had the skirt of the balloon removed andI had about 2.5Kg of free lift. That was a bit to much, because I filled 4.9 m2 of Helium. Anyway the balloon reached 21'500m (something around 65'000 feet) and bring me back great videos and images. No desert and great planes here: I had to climb the alps to get the capsule back! Marco Glattfelder, Switzerland

This item has been shown 9978 times. Giant Weather Balloon Meteorological Military 8' Dia.: $22