But they keep floating off the scale ...

When my niece was little we got her a helium balloon inside and said, "OOOPS! It's falling UP!" :D
 
I assume y'all caught the Mythbusters episode where they determined that a football filled with Helium is indeed lighter and should "kick" farther....
 
What do they do? Mount the scales on the ceiling or something?

It's a BLIMP. If it works, it weighs zero or less.


Hmmm.... If you fill ping pong balls with helium and stuff them in all the empty spaces in the wings and fuselage, do you get a gross weight increase? Do you get to load more junk in the back of the plane.
 
fgcason said:
What do they do? Mount the scales on the ceiling or something?

It's a BLIMP. If it works, it weighs zero or less.


Hmmm.... If you fill ping pong balls with helium and stuff them in all the empty spaces in the wings and fuselage, do you get a gross weight increase? Do you get to load more junk in the back of the plane.
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The Mythbusters also tried filling a rescue raft with Helium to see if it would lift a man. Nope. The material alone is too heavy.

They made some calculations on how many CuFt of helium they needed and created a massive hangar-sized raft out of hundreds of mylar tubes. It seemed that it would work but they couldn't get it so Adam didn't fall through it. There were a lot of munchkin voices in that episode.
 
They also showed it took over 4000 party balloons filled with helium to lift a 40 pound child.
 
Ever notice how helium filled ballons in your car will move "forward when you accelerate, and will move toward the rear of the car when you apply the brakes? It's really cool. When you accelerate, the air mass in the car gets compressed at the back of the car and the ballons will "float" towards the front.
 
fgcason said:
What do they do? Mount the scales on the ceiling or something?

It's a BLIMP. If it works, it weighs zero or less.
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You DO realize that the headline is actually regarding the Army's process to decide using blimps vs actually weighing them, right?
 
Brian Austin said:
You DO realize that the headline is actually regarding the Army's process to decide using blimps vs actually weighing them, right?
Click to expand...

You DO realize that's not what the original post headline says: :D
"U.S. Army Weighs Blimp Fleet for Iraq"

weigh v. 1. To determine the weight of by or as if by using a scale or similar instrument.

Looks pretty straightforward to me. :dunno:
 
Brian Austin said:
It's a play on words. :D
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They need to quit playing with words and say what they mean. :rolleyes:
"U.S. Army considers Blimp Fleet for Iraq"

There's too many hidden/secret double meanings to so much of what people say nowadays. Life would be so much easier if people would just say what they're trying to say.
 
fgcason said:
They need to quit playing with words and say what they mean. :rolleyes:
"U.S. Army considers Blimp Fleet for Iraq"

There's too many hidden/secret double meanings to so much of what people say nowadays. Life would be so much easier if people would just say what they're trying to say.
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LOL...that's their job! The idea is to catch your attention with the headline to get you to read the story. "Considers" is boring compared to "weigh" with the blimps. It worked for us, didn't it?! ;)
 
fgcason said:
They need to quit playing with words and say what they mean. :rolleyes:
"U.S. Army considers Blimp Fleet for Iraq"

There's too many hidden/secret double meanings to so much of what people say nowadays. Life would be so much easier if people would just say what they're trying to say.
Click to expand...

Heh... about 13-15 years ago, a smaller newspaper in WI (from La Crosse maybe, or Appleton, or some smaller town) did some kind of story about then-Gov. Tommy Thompson's generous use of his line-item veto powers. The headline read:

"Thompson's pen is a sword"

And had some creative kerning between "pen" and "is". :rofl:
 
fgcason said:
They need to quit playing with words and say what they mean. :rolleyes:
"U.S. Army considers Blimp Fleet for Iraq"

There's too many hidden/secret double meanings to so much of what people say nowadays. Life would be so much easier if people would just say what they're trying to say.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree. The English language can be such a rich language of nuance and meaning and humor. Dumbing it down caters to illiteracy, which just promotes more illiteracy and a real loss for the richness of expression. Yeah, I know I sound like a literature professor when in fact I'm a geology professor, but I love the language and hate to see it flattened.

Judy
 
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