'Up' In Real Life: NatGeo Builds a Flying Balloon House!

Up house.jpg" style="margin: 5px; float: left; width: 300px; height: 169px;" />I wouldn't suggest dropping an anvil on your head anytime soon, but it turns out that cartoons aren't always all fantasy. Case in point: National Geographic took inspiration from Pixar's "Up" and made a house fly with balloons!

The stunt is apparently part of NatGeo's new show "How Hard Can It Be?" which sets out to accomplish amazing feats like, say, getting a house to fly using only balloons. Of course, this isn't a real house: it's a 16 by 16 feet replica, built specifically for this purpose, so it's probably pretty lightweight.

The house was lifted by three hundred helium-filled weather ballons, all securely attached to cross-beams inside the house, and floating through a hole in the roof.

The house reached an altitude of 10,000 feet, and flew for an hour. Pretty darned impressive for just a bunch of wood and balloons! And before you ask, the answer is no, they did not put an old man and a boy scout in the house.

So there you have it. While you might not be able to paint a picture of a tunnel on a wall and then run through it, you can do some things you see in cartoons in real life. For more images of the flight and for video coverage, check out Gizmodo's article.