hobbes4star 0 #1 April 1, 2003 talk about alot of spare time on your hands. from the "daily record" http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/news/page.cfm?objectid=12779681&method=full&siteid=89488 BOING! TONY SPENDS 5 YEARS MAKING A ONE-TON RUBBER BAND BALL Mar 27 2003 BOING! It bursts after he drops it out of plane to see if it bounces Richard Smith AS if creating the world's biggest rubber band ball wasn't silly enough, what Tony Evans did next was plane daft. He allowed the one-ton monster to be dropped from an aeroplane to see it bounce. He said: "I've spent years working on that ball. It was my pride and joy. "People were always asking me what would happen if the ball was dropped from a great height. Would it bounce or explode? No one knew." Tony found out soon enough, however, after it was taken up in a cargo plane and the 4ft- wide ball of six million rubber bands was rolled out a mile above Arizona. Sadly for him and the skydiving cameramen recording the event for a TV show it hit the Mojave Desert like a scene out of the Roadrunner cartoon series. It sent up a huge cloud of dust but, with the cameras rolling and waiting for the ball to reappear, it stayed embedded in a crater. The outer layer ripped off and left scattered in the sand donations from stationery cupboards across Britain, including 10,000 bands from an Edinburgh woman. Former taxi driver Tony, who spent years building the record-beater at his Swansea home, said yesterday: "I'd have loved to see it bounce up into the sky. "But it was an incredible sight. Even though the ball was dropped from a mile up, it took just 20 seconds to hit the ground. "A huge cloud of dust rose 15 to 20 feet into the air but we didn't see the ball bounce. We raced over and saw this huge crater, about nine feet wide. "There were elastic bands everywhere. The ball had literally jumped out of its skin." Tony, 54, spent five years making the ball which earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records. But it all came to a sorry end after an American TV company offered to drop the ball from an aeroplane. The bizarre stunt was filmed by three sky-divers and watched by Tony and his wife, Liz, 53. Tony said:"The idea of the ball all started as something to play with in an idle moment but over time it grew and grew and I didn't want to stop. "It was a great experience going to America. "But it would be nice to get my ball back and do something else with it."if fun were easy it wouldn't be worth having, right? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FallingILweenie 0 #2 April 1, 2003 it was on Ripley's believe it or not recently. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dragontail 0 #3 April 1, 2003 I heard about that. Has anyone found a video clip of it out on the web? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #4 April 1, 2003 It was on Fark a while back, too...funny. That would have been one hell of a jump to be on, though, too bad I'm not a uber-kick-ass-skydiver like those guys, they get all the cool jumps. --"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
newshooter12 0 #5 April 1, 2003 i'm pretty sure Bret F. posted a bunch of the still pictures here or some links to his site. Not sure if there are any video clips on the FTP site though. matt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
