Calling Bullshit on the Heene family attention whoring

Something didn't ring quite right and I put some numbers to paper. The Falcon Heene story is Abject Bullshit. From FOX News:

Balloon Family's Stab at Video Fame Included Father's 'Fake or Real' Rants
Richard Heene, in addition to attaining a level of reality TV fame on ABC's "Wife Swap," has his own amateur video series on YouTube in which he sizes up various pop culture phenomena.

For each topic, from the Loch Ness monster to Britney Spears' chest, he asks the question "fake or real?"

But on Thursday, Heene's family was caught up in a real-life drama that raised the same question, as Colorado authorities feared his son was trapped in a runaway flying balloon only to discover after the balloon crashed that the boy had been hiding, safe at home the whole time.

A reporter even asked Heene afterward if the whole thing was a big publicity stunt, which he adamantly denied.

"That's horrible after the crap we just went through. No," he said.

A Liter of Air weighs about 1.2 Grams at STP. A Liter of He weighs about 0.1785 Grams at STP. Translating into the units that we understand, a balloon with about 15 Cubic Feet will lift about One Pound. Here is a thumbnail image of the balloon at its crash site: So that is maybe... 10-15 feet in diameter and a little over three or four feet thick. I will be kind and assume a cross-section of a cylinder and not the odd shape that it is. A 15' diameter has a radius of 7.5' Volume of a cylinder is v = h * pi * r squared Working backwards: 7.5 * 7.5 (r sq.) * 3.141 (pi) * 4 (h) = 706.725 cu. ft. 706.725 cu. ft. / 15 = 47.115 maximum pounds of lift.

• Obviously, the balloon is not 700 cu. ft. in size, the edges are tapered and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt on each dimension.
• Obviously the 47 pounds is not the payload capacity -- the balloon has an electronics package and it has its own structure to account for.
• Finally, we are not dealing with STP (Standard Temperature and Pressure -- sea level and 68 degrees F), we are dealing with the atmospheric pressure at their elevation in Colorado -- some 5,000 feet. The lift will be less.

I remember hearing on the radio as I was driving back home that the family was not going to be charged for the cost of the Search and Rescue. I hope that they are -- this was an egregious publicity stunt. The laws of Physics bar the child from ever being in the balloon as it flew; let alone his being able to survive in an envelope full of helium -- didn't see a crew capsule. Once again, Bullshit and an incredibly stupid stunt to try...