JONNY PHILLIPS: Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to have a go at lifting someone off the ground using helium filled balloons and today my dreams come true.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Jonny I've done the calculations, to get me airborne we're gonna need at least 30,000 of these.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Yeah actually Rich I was thinking oF slightly bigger balloons.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Oh yeah.

RICHARD AMBROSE: And when Jonny said big balloons he meant BIG balloons.  Look at the size of this thing, it's a whopper.

NARRATOR: And it's going to get bigger. When this balloon is fully inflated it'll have a diameter of two and a half metres, and it will hold over 7 cubic metres of helium, which is just about enough to lift 7 kilograms off the ground.

RICHARD AMBROSE:

Now we're just testing this balloon and this weight is just under 7 kilograms and look at it.

NARRATOR: With Richard tipping the scales at a very healthy 96 kilograms, the boys are going to need to fill around 14 of these monster balloons to have any chance of getting him airborne.

NARRATOR: Everything's set.  Everything that is, except the weather.

While the boys have been busy in the hangar, the perfect summer's day outside has been replaced by one with the wind gusting at up to 30 kilometres an hour.  Not the ideal weather to fly balloons.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Alright Rich are you ready for this?

RICHARD AMBROSE: Oh yeah.  Bring it on.

JONNY PHILLIPS: This is just one and it is fighting like anything.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Tie it on Jonny I'm ready to go up. More balloons.

NARRATOR: Attaching all 14 balloons in this wind was proving very difficult and it wasn't long before things started to go wrong.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Five balloons Oh ohhh Oh noo!!!  Look at that 6!  Think of Neil Armstrong.  Think of the Wright Brothers Think of Richard and Jonny.

NARRATOR:  But try as they might, in this wind, the maximum they could attach was 7 balloons, and that just wasn't enough to keep Richard in the air for any length of time.

RICHARD AMBROSE: And here we go again.  Filling balloons takes a long, long time, but that's dedication for you.

NARRATOR:  And after 3 to 4 hours of hard graft, we were ready to fly once more.

RICHARD AMBROSE: This is it the point of no return.  Its time to get airborne.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Right all the balloons have been inflated, are you ready Rich?

RICHARD AMBROSE: I'm ready.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Here we go, now can you feel that? I have now attached...

RICHARD AMBROSE: Yeah that's quite a tug actually.

NARRATOR:  We did this experiment to find out how much helium it would take to get Richard off the ground - and the answer is ... an awful lot.

RICHARD AMBROSE:  I'm just a little bit light-footed now.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Right these are the last four balloons, and he's almost...

RICHARD AMBROSE: And I'm dying to go Jonny.  I'm dying to go!!!

NARRATOR:  In the end, we used 18 balloons, which hold approximately 96,000 litres of helium.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Yeahh....Ohhhh

JONNY PHILLIPS: Now after all that we have a success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NARRATOR:  Well, nearly Richard, maybe you'd get a little higher if you stopped eating so many pies!