So I was checking my email this morning and I found this article on the Yahoo front page news about how an American adventurer crossed the English Channel in a chair tied to a bunch of helium balloons: [url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100528/ap_on_fe_st/eu_britain_balloon_man_10#mwpphu-container[/url]
This made me immediately think of this movie! Although the article itself doesn’t mention Up, the balloons in the article picture all say “Up” on them, so I wonder what relation the movie had to this feat, and if the man was inspired by Up to do this. Turns out he was! After a little bit of digging around, I found this page on the website of the project: [url]http://www.clusterballoon.com/UP/Index.asp[/url]
This neat contraption is FAA certified and federally registered. It can be flown legally in almost all US airspace! Also the chair that hangs beneath the balloons is directly based off of Carl’s chair, Pixar sent him the digital models of it. The cool thing though is that if you look at the official FAA Registry documentation, the model of the aircraft is “CARL FREDRECKSENS” and the serial number is “A-113”!
FAA link: [url]http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=878UP[/url]