Flaming Lanterns

Lando

Lando

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Lando
Anybody encountered one of those flaming lanterns that people set on fire and then watch float away? I just had an ad pop up in my Facebook feed for a lantern fest (don't really want to give them a link but if you Google it, you'll find it). The obvious implications to aviation are there, but I have to imagine they are also a hazard for forest fires and make a mess when they land too. One or two of these is one thing, but launching hundreds at a time??? Seems a little irresponsible. If anyone has seen the festival, do they file NOTAMs?
 
Encountered in the air? No. Helped build and launch one from an Air Force base? Yes, 1988.
 
About three years ago we were in our campsite in Vintage when we saw one go over (I think it must have been launched from Scholler). One of the locals hopped in his truck and followed it and recovered it when it came down. We've launched them from our field at home a few times.

I don't think they get that high. Looks a lot lower than most fireworks and even fireworks are only a 100-200' up.
 
I make them from soda straws, very thin dry cleaning (plastic) bags and birthday candles.
Every time I launch one, there is a new UFO sighting.
It never gets old.
 
I don't know how they'd be a fire hazard; once airborne, they aren't coming down until the fire goes out. And I think it'd be quite a trick to get them up to 3,000'. Even if they did go that high, I don't think they'd be anymore of a hazard to aviation than mylar balloons.
 
They have been known to start fires. They can catch fire themselves and fall before the fire's out. They're an insane form of entertainment, especially here in the forests of western Canada. Witness the holocaust that forced 88,000 people out of Fort McMurray a couple of weeks ago. A tenth of the city has burned to nothing and much more will be damaged.

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Lindberg said:
I don't know how they'd be a fire hazard; once airborne, they aren't coming down until the fire goes out. And I think it'd be quite a trick to get them up to 3,000'. Even if they did go that high, I don't think they'd be anymore of a hazard to aviation than mylar balloons.
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I'll tell you how: I saw some idiots launch a swarm of them from the beach at the conclusion of a sunset wedding. A couple of them got tangled in some nearby eucalyptus trees. This was in tinder-dry California - at the height
of Fire Season. They got lucky, and no fire resulted - but the outcome could easily have been very different. I did see an indignant property owner carrying one (which had landed in his yard) back to the point of origin. No
doubt he gave the perps a tongue lashing. I suspect that the police were called as well - but I left before any responders arrived.

Dave
 
Dan Thomas said:
They have been known to start fires. They can catch fire themselves and fall before the fire's out. They're an insane form of entertainment, especially here in the forests of western Canada. Witness the holocaust that forced 88,000 people out of Fort McMurray a couple of weeks ago. A tenth of the city has burned to nothing and much more will be damaged.

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A candle ballon did that?
 
This guy I work with keeps a shaker of ground up hot peppers on his desk. He calls it snake dust, it's a mixture that includes ghost peppers. That'll give ya a flaming something the next day!
 
Lindberg said:
I don't know how they'd be a fire hazard; once airborne, they aren't coming down until the fire goes out.
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Back ~45 years ago, we used Sterno for fuel. Saw a structural failure one night where the cross-supports had apparently burned through or melted. The Sterno REALLY liked the additional airflow as it dropped. It looked like a burning spear as it fell....probably burned out before it hit, but it could really have started something.

Ron Wanttaja
 
flyingron said:
About three years ago we were in our campsite in Vintage when we saw one go over (I think it must have been launched from Scholler). One of the locals hopped in his truck and followed it and recovered it when it came down. We've launched them from our field at home a few times.

I don't think they get that high. Looks a lot lower than most fireworks and even fireworks are only a 100-200' up.
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We've seen them every year at OSH after the airshow. Someone launches them from way out west in Scholler and they go (hopefully) all the way across the airport and probably to the lake.

It seems like a really stupid idea launching them there, considering all the fueled airplanes sitting in Vintage and out to the flight line near the runway. They look neat and all, but whoever is launching them every year is kinda brainless, considering what's underneath their flight path.

Last year they launched them on one of the windiest nights. They were hauling ass toward the airport boundary and eventually I suppose the lake when they went over us at 47th and Lindbergh.
 
James331 said:
A candle ballon did that?
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They'll be investigating to see what caused it but the damage is so immense that it's not likely they'll pin it on anyone. A cigarette butt, a campfire (a fire ban was on), ATV exhaust, anything. I was told by an Alberta fire suppression officer that 99% of Alberta's fires are human caused. Here in BC lightning plays a larger role.

The law here has warned that they'll charge anyone launching candle balloons. Last summer numerous properties in southern BC were lost to a fire that was probably started by a discarded cigarette butt along the highway. The forests here have been tinder-dry in some years ever since I was a kid, and in those years we get huge fires. The Fort McMurray fire is the most destructive in recorded Canadian history, and it' still burning. It's consumed over 500,000 hectares (more than 1.2 million acres or 1930 square miles.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/fort-mcmurray-fire-saskatchewan-1.3589287

An event like that makes one wonder about the folks who play with fire.
 
I'm surprised that they are legal. I was at a kids party and they launched some of them, supposedly to show the kids that hot air rises. This was in an older neighborhood in Denver with houses and trees...

As far as Alberta goes, we went for a drive west of Calgary a few days ago. I was surprised at how empty the mountain reservoirs were. They resembled the photos we have seen of the reservoirs in California during the drought there. And this is only spring.
 
In dry parts of the country, like mine, a person launching such a device would be executed by dusk by a posse of upset locals.
 
wanttaja said:
Back ~45 years ago, we used Sterno for fuel. Saw a structural failure one night where the cross-supports had apparently burned through or melted. The Sterno REALLY liked the additional airflow as it dropped. It looked like a burning spear as it fell....probably burned out before it hit, but it could really have started something.

Ron Wanttaja
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Apparently there are different varieties. The one's I've seen use a solid wax-like substance.
 
I've seen hundreds of them being launched a couple of times here in the Dallas area. Not sure what the origin point was, but they were floating over IH-35W south of downtown and looked pretty cool.
 
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