Laughed so hard I piddled myself …
That’s a hot-air balloon. Hot air has much less lifting capacity than helium, so it can be much weaker. It also doesn’t need to be very leak-proof. Helium is very hard to seal against.
How are you going to store the helium balloon for reuse?? Towing a fully inflated helium balloon of this size would be extremely difficult. It would take a fairly significant piece of equipment to compress it back into tanks.
Fewer times than you might think.
The fabric is succeptable to UV radiation, is normally used in fair wind and clear skies, and unless you use it only at night, doesn’t actually fail, but becomes too dangerous to use after some relatively small number of hours.
Well, back to the drawing board.
The plan will present many difficulties and so it is unfeasible. First you will need large quantities of helium. Second you will need a propelling system which will send the baloon to the direction you want, that will put extra weight. Third the baloon will be vulnerable to uv radiation and other hazards which will weaken it. Also, what will happen if it punctures and falls? Overall it is unfeasible. There are many better ways of transporting something. Also I think helium is in short supply, and we don’t want to deplete it with no serious reason.
[quote=“Enola_Straight, post:12, topic:770792”]
Years ago the logging industry tried…and failed…to make a sky-crane out of a blimp and four helicopters.
The Heli-stat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9xPAm1Xo3Q[/QUOTE]But balloon loggingwas/is a real thing. Because of the limited applications it never really took off but it was done until helicopter logging made it obsolete. The lift capacity is said to be about 25,000 lbs. A two drum yarder worked the main line and the haul back line and the balloon was just used for lift.
Here is an link to the Forestry Handbook. It gives three rigging combinations. A haulback system where the balloon actually moves due to the yarder. A skyline system where a carriage moves and the balloon is the lift for the carriage. And a yo-yo system with two yarders.
You say it’s unfeasible but based on my back of the hand calculations and three different logging cost calculators. I think that if the OP:
Had access to a skyline yarder and a motorized carriage. (and a balloon)
and
Had a non-roaded yarding distance of somewhere over 3000 feet and less then 7500 feet and the ground was fairly steep with convex slopes.
and
Had to move thousands of similar blocks
and
Each block was worth about $1200 at it’s destination.
Then it would be slightly more feasible then using a helicopter.
*Based on 2.5 mbf to 10000 lb conversion. $500 per thousand heli cost. $225 per thousand skyline cost at 3000ft. and $500 per mbf log value *
If anyone wants to try this, just go down to the docks, and find a nice big boat that is tied down. You’ll be amazed at how possible it is to make it move.
Notice that I didn’t say “how easy it is”. You’ll have to put a lot of muscle into the task. But it CAN be done. It won’t go very far, and not too fast either. But as the boat floats it is essentially weightless, and the only thing you’re fighting is inertia (and some friction against the water, I suppose). The fact that you can move the boat at all is amazing.