Overflite Model Hot Air
Balloons
Instructions
How
to
Build
Birthday
Candle
Engine
Powered
UFO
Fire Balloons
Mathematics
and
Technology
for
Science
and
Design
Birthday Candle Balloons can light for over ten minutes, climb over two thousand feet high, sail for over a mile, shine like big orange stars and then finally burnout. It's like having a rocket launch program. Like NASA or SpaceX. Except a lot cheaper, more fun and not so time-consuming. People can also fly fire balloon fleets - YouTube - Sky Lanterns - Or launch party balloons from scenic locations. Or play party balloon bocce ball.
Also check out the YouTube videos -
keywords - candle
hot
air
balloon - fire
balloon - ufo
balloon
- wow
hot
balloon - sky
lantern - Plus SCROLL BELOW - For lots & lots of information
about
hot air balloon science and theory and models.
BUY SKY
LANTERNS
-
"Soar High and Travel Far"
- Flying Lanterns were originally invented in China close to two
thousand years ago for military communitions. They fly around the
world by the millions. Purchase sky lanterns on both - eBay
and Amazon
- for only
two
or
three
dollars
apiece. Load
up the pickup truck. For lots of real cheap flights. So
nowdays
people
do not
even
have
to
build their
own
fire
balloons
anymore.
Just
buy
them
and
fly
them. Buy beaucoup stock
and
store. Which is convenient too. Especially to
play balloon bocce
or fly fire balloon fleets.
Then scope out the situation and go for launch. Figure the flying
lanterns to climb into the slipstream for around a ten
minute free flight. Around two clicks. Then
slowly holiday
parade float
water back pain goose down to the
three phase neutral ground. More fun than spud gun or tennis ball
cannon
barrel roll. For birthday
party ideas or
music concert tour
or airshow fly-by rodeo cowboy bull lingo. Then go running track
one it and chase bank it down vest jacket. Plus keep
score too. Hole-in-one bocce ball toss up parabola buys mucho
dinero rounds of
golf club balls and cocktail fruit drink specials.
Tired of making balloon payments in
maintenance fees for a timeshare
relief
Vermont
property you don't even use anymore? Stop letting timeshare scam
companies blow hot air in your face and cancel your
timeshare the guaranteed way with Timeshare
Relief.
.. .
. . ..
..
..
.
..
..
.
..
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Central Park --
Overflite's Home Base - Mostly flew after things got quiet.
Check weather for ambient
temperature -
wind speed & wind direction - google nyc zip code - 10106
weather hour by hour
NOTE - Wind direction is where the wind comes from. As
example
North by North-West is written NNW. But the balloons would travel
in the exact opposite direction, ie South by South-East - SSE.
Models include Homemade Plastic Bag
Balloon
& Dry Cleaner
Bag - Straw Boss Balloon
- Drinking straws are stuck together to make the X-frame. Scotch
tape flaps on the ends of the straws make it simple to tape frame to
bag. Engine is pinned to frame with three shirt pins.
- Typical birthday candle engine for Straw Boss is made with 24 of the
36/pack Cakemate candles. Melted together with a fork. Made
double-file. 12 + 12 = 24 candles. For cold weather only!
- Alternately balsa wood sticks can be tied together or taped together
into an H-frame. Specifications for Pic Balloon - 15 cubic feet -
1/3 mil pizza-cutter bag -
H-frame balsa - single-file engine - w 44 candles - 24/pack type.
SEE WARNINGS - BALLOONISTS
COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL FIRE BALLOONS - SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE
INFORMATION
.
-- Hudson -- That's it man, game over man, game over! What are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
-- Burke -- Why don't we build a fire, sing a couple of songs! Why don't we try that?
-- Hudson --17 days?! - (until rescue ship arrives) - Hey man, I don't want to rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last 17 hours against those things!
-- Ripley -- Hudson! This little girl (Newt) survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.
-- Hudson- Why don't you put her in charge?
-- Ripley -- I feel like kind of a fifth wheel around here, is there anything I can do?
-- Apone -- I dunno, is there anything you can do?
---------------------------
-- Lincoln -- Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.
-- Lincoln -- If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
-- Lincoln -- If General McClellan isn't going to use his army, I'd like to borrow it for a time.
-- Lincoln -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
-- Lincoln -- Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-- Lincoln -- This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-----------------------------
NOTE: Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18 years old. Her husband Percy Shelley flew protest fire balloons over London Town in around 1812 to protest English colonial rule over Ireland.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley - (1792-1822) -- A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Love is free. To promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed. Such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due - dust claims dust - and we die too.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - (1797-1851) -- Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of voice, but out of chaos.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- No man chooses evil because it is evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- What terrified me will terrify others. And I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created.
-- Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus - (1818) -- Once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.
-- Frankenstein -- I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
-- Frankenstein -- Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him. But I am solitary and detested.
-- Frankenstein -- If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear! -- Beware - for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.
-- Frankenstein -- Devil, do you dare approach me? And do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?
-- Frankenstein -- With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries?
-- Frankenstein -- He is dead who called me into being. When I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- The giant now awoke. The mind, never torpid, but never rouzed to its full energies, received the spark which lit it into an unextinguishable flame. Who can now tell the feelings of liberal men on the first outbreak of the French Revolution. In but too short a time afterwards it became tarnished by the vices of Orléans — dimmed by the want of talent of the Girondists — deformed and blood-stained by the Jacobins.
----------------------------
Sonnet - To a Balloon, Laden with Knowledge
by Percy Bysshe Shelley - (1812)
Bright ball of flame that thro the gloom of even
Silently takest thine etherial way
And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue Depths of Heaven
Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shall thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom
Whilst that unquencheable is doomed to glow
A watch light by the patriots lonely tomb
A ray of courage to the opprest & poor,
A spark tho' gleaming on the hovel's hearth
Which thro the tyrants gilded domes shall roar
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth
A Sun which oer the renovated scene
Shall dart like Truth where Falshood yet has been
--------------------------------------
Summary - When riding a motorcycle too fast into a hairpin turn there are basically two strategies about what to do:
Risky Strategy - Go over the top - Speed up and drop down into the turn and hope you don't hit the rail or fence or curb or ditch. If the bike crashes it will typically flip over in the opposite direction and fling the rider high into the air at high speed. It is a very dangerous strategy. But does sometimes avoid crashes. By the amazing ability of the expert rider to manouver a high speed turn. But the crashes are very spectacular and deadly too. Typically both the bike and rider get completely destroyed. This is what the Obamian Administration is doing right now.
Conservative Strategy - Prepare to drop the bike - Slow down for the crash as much as possible while still trying to make the turn and find an opportunity. Then do everything possible to defend against the crash. Typical move is to drop the bike in towards the turn and then try to ride the bike like a sled for as long as possible. Then to try to treat getting thrown off the bike like it is some kind of great leap forward. And live to fight another day. Possibly with a reasonably undamaged bike too. This is what the Republicans and Tea Party is proposing to do. For America to survive. It is also the less dicey strategy of the two.
--------------------------------------
-- Tacitus -- A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.
-- Maximilien Robespierre -- The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte -- When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
-- Leon Trotsky -- England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.
-- Saul Alinsky -- An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent ... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises ... The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them.
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- COOL VIDEO OF CANDLE POWERED HOT AIR BALLOON LAUNCH - google - wow hot balloon - or click here
- What Fire Balloons Can and Cannot Do
- History of Fire Balloons - w Links
- Web Links -- Includes links to various plans for building paper hot air balloons.
---------------------------------
MODEL HOT AIR BALLOON SCIENCE
- Weight of Air Calculation, Heating and Hot Air Balloon Lift - applies Gas Laws to model hot air balloons.
- Mathematical Models for Candle Balloon Design - builds a system of geometric models for approximating candle balloon heating. Suggests how many birthday candles to use for different volumes.
- Aerostatic Design Principles for Paper Hot Air Balloons!! -- Applies Geometry, Algebra, and Scaling, to build formulas and methodologies for calculating theoretical specifications for both plastic and paper model hot air balloons.
- Volume Calculations for Cylinder Shaped Balloons includes a table for different bag sizes. It also describes Scaling, ie. the geometry for changes in dimensions, volume and surface area for equivilently shaped objects.
- Hot Air Balloon Laboratory --
School Science Project Lesson Plan heats a dry
cleaner bag balloon, with a hot air popcorn popper.
Measures temperature and lift. Applies the mathematics for Gas
Laws.
Traditional Paper Fire Balloons or Montgolfiers (In Italian) - have been flying ever since the invention of the manned hot air balloon, by the Montgolfier Brothers, in 1783. In the United States they were known as Fourth of July Balloons and were part of American Folk History, of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Likewise, fire balloons are also a part of World History.
--------------------------------
People still fly paper fire balloons in a number of places around the world, mainly for Festival of Lights Celebrations. In Brazil - (2) people balloons fly in June. In Italy people balloons fly in September. In Greece people fly balloons for Easter. In Buddhist countries people fly balloons in October, to celebrate Buddha's return from Heaven and to light the path from heaven to earth.
During World War II French Resistance Fighters apparently launched paper fire balloons. In French, "Foo" means either fire or fool. Many of the Foo Fighter Sightings - (2) seem a lot like fire balloons too. Also, on February 25, 1942, it appears a Japanese submarine might have maybe launched hydrogen balloons, with flares attached, to trigger The Battle of Los Angeles.
Dry cleaner bag fire balloons were also inspired
by Kenneth
Arnold's
1947
UFO
Sighting. They were then popularized by a
Popular Science Magazine that included instructions on how to build a
miniature hot air balloon with a dry cleaner bag, wire, cotton and
lighter fluid. Here is a
first-person acdount of one of those early UFO balloons.
Meanwhile enterprising young inventors invented the birthday candle
balloon too. And inventors are still inventing the birthday
candle balloon today. See
YouTube.
- ABC
TV
News
Report
--
July
17,
2001
--
Strange
Lights
over
New
Jersey - &
Possible
Explanations
- 1970s UFO Sightings -- News Article -
Overflite Dry Cleaner Bag Fire Balloons
- For Sale:
Slightly Used UFO -- Needs New Candle -- Contact the Sheriff --
- Police
Say
Some
UFO's
are
Fire
Balloons
with
Candles --
- UFO
Reports
and
Pranks
Continuing... --
- Homepage
for
Larry
Robinson
--
UFO
Debunker --
- National
UFO
Reporting
Center
--Homepage -- UFO
Reports Database
--
- Roswell
II?
--
Reports
from
the
Ongoing
UFO
Craze
in
Rockford,
Illinois --
Fire Balloons! Materials, Construction and Design
"Large Envelopes," in different sizes and shapes, can be made with thin plastic sheeting. Look for 1/3 mil (8 micron) high-density plastic sheeting. Welds are made with a heated pizza cutter, on top of a wooden board. It is amazing how well this system works! Scotch tape repairs any weak spots. To stabilize the balloons, the bags are tapered, and small ventilation holes are made. This provides "negative draft," which helps to reduce the de-stabilizing effects of "billowing."
"H-Frames" are made by tying three balsa wood sticks together with string. Alternately "X-Frames" can be made by sticking drinking straws into each other, and pinning two sets together with a shirt pin. But ... the "H-Frame" and balsa wood design is more advanced. Optionally, an "H-Frame" design can be built with drinking straws.
Engines are made by melting birthday candles together with a heated fork. Alternately, dripped wax can melt the candles together. The most efficient engines are single-file. They get maximum oxygen and cooling area. To conserve space, engines can also be made double-file. Here two single-files are melted together. Melted wax holds the engine to the frame.
Technologically advanced balloonists can apply the information to design large volume Christmas Candle Balloons, or Homemade Candle Balloons, which can burn for around forty minutes. Candle Powered Paper Hot Air Balloons can also be designed. For more detailed information on design and construction -- Stay tuned!
NOTE: For any type of experimental fire balloon, it is
not a good idea to rely too much on an outside heat source.
Otherwise a too-heavy balloon might climb up at first, then land,
risking a crash and burn.
------------------------------------
Fire
Balloons!
Warnings and Cautions:
Do not fly fire balloons in any fire danger areas, especially if they are hilly or mountainous, or if it is windy or gusting. Do not fly any faulty or damaged fire balloons. Avoid Crash and Burns. Balloonists are obligated not to cause any fire danger. Also, fire balloons should not be made too large, in case they land directly in automobile traffic.
The FAA prohibits operating any "Unmanned Free Balloon" in a hazardous manner, per FAA-DOT 101.7 - The FAA also prohibits including any significant amounts of metal, on devices that fly to altitudes where there may be aircraft. Do not fly wire frame fire balloons. They can be dangerous to turbine engine aircraft. They can also short-circuit electrical power lines.
Do not fly fire balloons near airports. Especially avoid active takeoff and landing patterns. Avoid flying fire balloons near any other prohibited or restricted areas without permission, as appropriate, unless it is very late at night -- and doesn't matter.
Build flightworthy balloons, according to the
conditions. Avoid flying fire balloons in winds above ten miles per
hour, especially if gusting. Avoid damaging balloons or crashing
them into obstacles. Avoid antagonizing the police or neighbors.
Monitor the complete flight of every balloon. Be responsible, and
use good judgement.
Try to make every flight a success!.
As long as candle powered fire balloons don't
crash and burn, there is not a big fire danger. The plastic bag
does not appear likely to become a serious hazard either, as long it
isn't very large and it doesn't land directly in automobile traffic
-------------------------------------.
NOTICE: All Balloonists are warned that they build and fly Fire Balloons completely at their own risk, and that they are completely responsible for determining all risks, and for any consequences that result!
Remember, you are completely responsible for every balloon you fly!
Instructions How to Build Dry Cleaner Bag Fire Balloons. Included are balsa wood "H-frame" balloons, drinking straw "X-frame" balloons, and mixed component balloons. Also included are specifications for the types of dry cleaner bags that can fly, and a list of supply houses.
Instructions How to Build Homemade Bag Fire Balloons. Only balsa wood "H-frame" balloons are included so far. Stay tuned for information on a drinking straw frame balloons.
By Thomas Taylor -- balloons@overflite.com
"Best of Sights, Overflight"
New collection idea for Gulf oil spill - Anchor a very long very strong canvas or sail-like sheet - or two or more - from near the oil spill to the surface to encourage the oil to collect and bubble around the canvas. Hopefully this would tend to create a current or tunnel or column or direct oil channel to the surface. Sort of like a pseudo-pipeline, with the oil itself forming the edges of the pipe. Since the seawater and the oily water will tend to each go their own way. Meaning the oil can make its own channel. Plus loose oil in the vicinity might tend to become attracted to the column too. Likewise several can be placed in the same general area to encourage the creation of an oil column.
It seems like the sails would be fairly easy to make. Get two or three long cables around a mile or two long. Also attach solid crosspieces at regular intervals to create something resembling a rope ladder. Then clamp the canvas around the "steps" of the ladder. Like the top of a director's chair. Couldn't imagine it would take longer than a few days to make something like this.
The two primary problems all along have the oil mixing in with the cold water to form ice. Plus 165 atmosphere compressed gases inside the oil that one would think would cause the oil to bubble as it climbs to the surface. Also, in whatever form the oil changes into, which would seem to be a gassy slush, it is light. So it should travel to the surface fairly quickly. Since it is only a mile. Would imagine entire process would take place within a few hours. So issue becomes how to contain or channel the oil during that time period. Simple idea would be to have the oil itself form its own channel. Through its lightness. How to accomplish this? Certainly a large tube would seem reasonable. If it could stand the currents and strains made on it. Which sounds reasonable. But another approach would simply to be achor long strips of canvas or other heavy material all the way down to the leak. Imagine the canvas would not necessarily have to be more than 10 feet wide. In fact halfway imagine that a series of ropes might not help to do the job too.
What is bad about this idea. Issue of whether the canvass or ropes could encourage enough of a flow to become self-sustaining. Since the oil might not cooperate. Other idea is to used compressed gases to start the process. But this probably would not work either. Since the pressure is so high.
Other idea is to use river barges as temporary holding tanks for the oil. A typical barge holds around 80,000 cubic feet of volume. Or around a half million gallons. The oil and water mix from the columns can be emptied into the barges. The oil will then float to the surface. The surface oil can be transferred to tankers. The oily water at the bottom can then get pumped into a second barge. To repeat the process. Final oil-water mix can then hopefully get processed. Or perhaps unfortunately just get dumped back instead. Or a tanker could take it to some type of oily water reprocessing facility. If they exist.
Idea for Gulf oil spill - BP Deepwater Horizon - Get some old hot air balloons to use as a bucket brigade to catch the streaming oil as it gushes out of the pipe. Weigh the deflated balloon down with some cinder blocks. Puncture holes in the top of the balloon to allow the unfreezing gas to escape. Attach a float to the top of the balloon, like a hollow metal globe, to hold the balloon vertically. Can also make a sort of pagoda, out of 2x4s, with a tin hat on top to work as a funnel. Alternately a hot air balloon can be cut in two, then get placed over one or more of the leaks and get weighed down with cinder blocks. This will cause the oil to stream out of the mouth of the balloon. ROVs then maneuver the mouth of the deflated balloon over the streaming oil. Perhaps with a coupling. Balloon fills up with oil, then floats to the surface. Oil can then be pumped into a tanker.
Doing the math, A typical hot air balloon might hoist 1,000 pounds. Since hot air can lift roughly 1/4 ounces per cubic foot the hot air balloon will hold roughly 64,000 cubic feet. At 7 gallons/cf = 450,000 gallons. If filled to 1/2 capacity then each balloon would hold roughly 200,000 gallons.
Modest estimate on the rate of the leak was around 500 thousand gallons per day. Or around 12,000 barrels at 42 gallons/barrel. Or around 21,000 gallons per hour or around 6 gallons per second. Which roughly the capacity of a medium to large fire hose at reasonably modest pressures. This would mean it would take roughly 10 hours to fill up one of the balloons.
POTENTIAL PROBLEM - As the combination of oil and natural gas comes out of the pipe it apparently turns into something resembling a lightweight icy foam. Like whipped cream or icy slush. Termed as gas hydrate crystals. Because of the reduction (!) in pressure from the inside the well another mile down up to the 160 atmospheres of pressure a mile underwater. The high water pressure a mile down then appears to preserve the foam in its frozen condition. Presumably after awhile the oil liquifies and the natural gas gets released and the foam dissipates. But while it stays in it's frozen state it is problematic. Because it is so thick and so buoyant.
This is what caused the problem with the dome. The pipe got clogged. Lightweight foam then filled the dome. The dome then became so buoyant it just floated away. And presumably they couldn't just weigh down the dome some more. Plus the engineers couldn't seem to figure out any reasonable solutions to get around the problem. Which was like a month ago already. Also perhaps they might just run into the same problem with the current attempts to attach a pipe to the top of the riser. Since the current attempt does not seem so very much different than the dome. (as of 06/02/10)
Anyway... one possible way to get around this problem would be to link the hot air balloons together in a chain. Guessing each hot air balloon to be around 100 feet high. This means that fifty hot air balloons could be coupled together to reach the surface. Providing a very wide channel opening for the oil to travel up through the insides of the balloons. With a combined capacity of around 10,000,000 gallons, only half filled. Which would take around 20 days to fill around halfway. Alternately the chain of hot air balloons could only be filled one-quarter of the way too. Which would take around 10 days or so for them all to fill up. Meanwhile if the first chain of hot air balloons fills up then BP could replace it with a new chain of hot air balloons. And let the first chain float to the surface. On the bottom balloon could be something resembling a large zip-lock. Or velcro would probably work too. And would not too difficult for a dexterious robot ROV to manouver.
Idea here is to get around the problem of the oil being so foamy and icy and thick and buoyant as it comes out of the pipe. Which could cause too much flotation and strain on the chain of hot air balloons. If the oil could not keep rising all on its own. Instead what would happen is that the oil would slowly rise to the surface. Unrestrained. And the natural gas would tend to escape and climb and bubble out of the column faster. So the oil would be able to slowly change from gassy ice to liquid without causing too much strain on the channel of hot air balloons. Once the oil reaches the surface it can be pumped out into tankers. Looks like the flow would be continuous. So only one set of hot air balloons would be needed. Plus a backup. In case the first chain breaks loose.
Also could make the device out of any material that can be made into a fairly wide tube. Only point to the balloons is they are already available and making them link together in a chain does not seem like such a grand modification. So would probably take at least a 100-200 hot air balloons to give it a good go. Since the first attempt could largely be figured for practice while making more chains.
SECOND POTENTIAL PROBLEM - water currents and hydrostatic pressure. Since even a fairly slow current of say one or two miles per hour could cause a lot of strain on any canvas-like material. So maybe none of the ideas are practical. Anyway, one idea here would just be to make the chain of balloons longer. And secure the bottom stronger. But perhaps the chain of balloons would have to be very long. Like miles and miles. But perhaps also the chain of balloons would not have to approach the surface. But could be pumped out from say a thousand feet or more below the surface. Or additional balloons could be attached like nodes to the top of the chain. Especially if the depth is within manned reach. Alternately would be to use shorter chains of balloons and then release and replace them.
Could also create a berm around the well. Water-filled hot air balloons probably would not work. But could attach a large sail to a fairly lightweight aluminum frame. Perhaps the device could be 50x50 feet. Idea here would be to divert any current around the broken wellhead to calm the area. That would make it easier to set up any type of collection device in the water around the well. Or maybe the hot air balloons could work too. Perhaps by using them similarly to parachutes. Which would keep them filled. So they would not collapse instead.