Earlier in the day I went to Target and bought UFO making supplies. While there I noticed that my custom-made racy buttons were gone from the rack. I bought straws, needles and birthday candles. I also got 20 dry cleaning bags from Heath Laundry. I think we did a total of 6 launches after dark. Three of them went beautifully. The balloon went way up into the sky and seemed to go really far into town. It looked like an large orange dot in the sky. The last one we did we saw bits of fire falling from it near the end. During the 2nd successful flight we got in the car and chased it for about 6 blocks.

We’ll probably try and do some more tonight if the wind isn’t too bad. Maybe we’ll do them a little earler so more people will notice them. I’m going to try and read up on designs of these things some more today so maybe I’ll learn some cool tips that will make them last longer in the air. Here are a few good links for making your own UFOs:

http://www.overflite.com/scooter.html

http://www.kickthefog.com/ufo.htm

Oh yeah, about the unsuccessful flights…2 of them didn’t even make it off the ground. They were too heavy. Another would have gone great but the wind blew it into a power line where it stayed for several hours. Luckily the candles in it went out and it didn’t go up in flames. Our launch after that almost met the same fate, but the 4 foot tall bag actually went in between 2 power lines, just barely missing them both. Tonight is supposed to be windy too so we might have problems again. It’d be best if we could launch these from a more open area but I’m pretty sure this has got to be illegal to do. Here’s a couple of pictures…