On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 7:12:58 PM UTC-6, 2G wrote:
On Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 4:37:07 PM UTC-8, Dan Marotta wrote:
He wasn't the pilot in the movie, SHE was.Â* I found it mildly
entertaining but didn't take it seriously.

On 12/28/2019 4:45 PM, 2G wrote:
On Monday, December 23, 2019 at 10:31:09 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Sunday, December 22, 2019 at 8:54:32 PM UTC-5, kinsell wrote:
On 12/22/19 5:38 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Sunday, December 22, 2019 at 7:24:17 PM UTC-5, kinsell wrote:

Read the comments on Amazon before wasting your time on this. A very
substantial rewrite of history, in order to push a political agenda.
The very capable and athletic young WOMAN in the movie is a fictional character. Once the balloon is aloft, the male scientist help her remove her corset and then she gets into her rain gear right before they fly into a cloud.

Damn. You said you weren't going to post spoilers, and here you gave
away the whole plot.

I suppose this isn't any worse than the Titanic movie, but most people
know that Kate Winslett and Leonardo DeCrapio weren't really on the
ship. The balloon story is much less well known, and weak-minded
individuals may think this is real.

It's a pity, the actual story was fascinating in its own right, just
didn't have the correct political message to make Bezos and company
happy. What an inspiring story for young girls, teaching them how easy
it is to fabricate phoney role models.

I'll skip watching this one, plenty of other phoney news stories
saturate the media these days. Now, back to soaring.
Recently I finally saw the movie "Gravity". Same sort of nonsense, political correctness and wrong physics. But that's always the case with mainstream movies.
It is interesting to note that James Glaisher, the pilot in the movie, did indeed set an altitude record of 36,000 ft in 1862 (Sep 5). But the passenger wasn't a female, it was Henry Coxwell. Glaisher did lose consciousness during the flight, but no mention is made of climbing the balloon to release the valve.

Tom

--
Dan, 5J


This is a more detailed description of the flight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120207...uk/balloon.htm
Glashier wasn't the pilot - Coxwell was. Coxwell did have major problems getting the valve to open, but didn't climb to the top of the balloon to do it. The also didn't cut away the basket to slow their descent. Nonetheless, it was a very amazing flight by any standards.

Tom

I don't get it. Without oxygen, the time of useful consciousness (TUC) at 35000 feet is 30-60 seconds according to this table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_o..._consciousness

Alpinists spend weeks in successive camps to get acclimated to the altitude; these guys blow all handbooks about hypoxia. Plus, in 1862 gloves and hats had not been invented and used yet, right?