Has anyone ever made one of these that flies? I've seen them while flying at night in the helo but can't seem to get mine to work.
I'm want to do it as a demonstration for my science students.
What kind of bags?
What kind of candle etc?
Thanks
Scratch

Check this out:

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

Used to do this as a kid when kids were allowed to learn things on their own.

We used a pair of crossed balsa sticks for the frame which supported an aluminum foil cup that held a number of lighter fluid soaked cotton balls.  Candles were too heavy.  We used dry cleaning bags as balloon envelopes.  These things never flew too far or too high but we certainly had a lot of fun building/launching them.  My dad always stood by with a 12 gage just in case one started to get away from us.  He had to shoot a few down whereupon we would descend upon it with water balloons in a firefighting frenzy.  MUCH fun and great memories.  Thanks for reminding me of them.

CB

Some dumbasses in college used gasoline in an aluminum cup for the flameholder and huge lawn-leaf bags as a canopy.  Things got interresting when the cups landed on a pitched shake roof and spilled their fuel.  Planerench out.

Rent or buy a takn of helium, add a large balloon plus some "glow" marker sticks in your choise of color and it makes a hell of an UFO!!

Later

IAJack

Damn if ya'll don't sound like the young whippersnappers in my neighborhood! [:D]

If you get caught, you know it's gonna go on your [u]permanent record[/u]!

Whatever the heck a 'permament record' might be.

Eric The(OldFart...HeyYou!GetAwayFromMyRosebushes,DamnFoolKids!)Hun[>]:)]

Ok my medacation is kikin in. When i was a kid we would get some close from the cleaners, Well the thin bag that thay put over the close is just right. You get some fountan straws and some birthday candels. Ok seal the hole the top of the bag use the straws to hold the bottum of the bag open. You will have to glue the straws togeather, now glue the candels to the strawes.  You will need a com night to fligh this it will burn up after a while.

Hey, Falcon2, you shouldn't mix the Paxil with the Ol' Grandad with the ganja. [;)]

CB

And dont you DARE use that spellcheck thingy at the bottom!

My crossed sticks and candle ballons never did fly worth a damn.  When I was older and working in a fabrication shop we made big ballons from sheet ployethlene.  Some of them would hold several hundred cubic feet of HYDROGEN gas.

Then we tie a bunch of solvent soaked rags to to them to make a tail for stability.  We'd light the rags and since these ballons climbed like gangbusters, they were several hundred feet up when they exploded.  The boom was tremendous!  It rattled windows for blocks!

Soon after a detonation, the police cruisers would come tooling through the industrical area where we were located.  I never got caught but I did have to buy a refill on a hydrogen cylinder once so the boss/owner wouldn't get suspicious.

Then a young & foolish....Geno

falcon2 sounds about what we did 30 some years ago.
one of the neigbor kids I hung out with 's mom had a dry cleaning bussiness and he would get the bags and then off to the local mcdonalds to get the free straws. and some glue from home and the only thing we paid for was the birthday candles when there was not enough at our homes to put one together.
we would only do it 3 or 4 times a year. and we lived behind a junior high school and would go there right after dark on a nice summer evening.

sometimes we would have 6 or 7 of us kids and launch two at a time.
we would like a very slight breeze and follow them with our bikes. on a good night they would go aways and with everyone sitting outside on a nice warm ca. night the glow was great and sometimes the plastic straws would catch on fire and would melt with a nice little flame of burning plastic dripping off of it.
man were those the days. a little wine or beer and some ballons great fun!!!!!!