I WAS interested to read about the plan to locate a passenger balloon in Southampton. However, there has not been any mention of the danger when a hawser parts.
As a 12-year-old in the 1940s, I saw seven balloons drift across Bitterne village, with mooring cables trailing beneath. I also witnessed many more as points of light in the sky, which had come from further afield.
The Daily Echo gave the balloon's dimension as 66ft across, with a platform for 30 slung beneath.
If the combined weight of the balloon and platform with hawser cable is, say, one and half tonne with 30 people at 150lb each, that's more than three tonnes.
The load on the cable would be an upward pull of 3.75 tonnes, this still looks good because they make cables with 45 tonne breaking strain.
The problem is it travels to 400ft, stops, then descends. It is repeated time and time again but eventually the cable will part.
If this happened the balloon would ascend with its passengers at possibly 20mph and at 20,000ft it is freezing cold.
We have already had the Titanic tragedy. Please stop the balloon project now. If anything happened the anxiety it would cause would be too much.
BILL WAKEFIELD, Polygon, Southampton.
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