When anyone wants to emulate the premise of the Pixar animated film “Up,” there’s a strong likelihood they’ll end up talking to Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.
That includes the world’s biggest YouTuber.
On Nov. 18, YouTuber MrBeast uploaded a 15-second video in which he sends a T-Mobile store into the sky with helium balloons. It took 550 of them to lift the store off the ground, and 619 to float away with him along for the ride.
Day was part of the extensive effort to make that happen, but he hasn't let a collaboration with one of the world's biggest social media stars overinflate his ego.
“It was a fun one to work on,” Day said. “Some people have niches in terms of what they do for their careers. Balloon weather is an extremely small niche, but it keeps me busy.”
Balloon Beast
MrBeast, the world’s biggest YouTuber with more than 331 million subscribers, wanted to send a T-Mobile store into the sky tethered to balloons. Day was hired to find the best day to do it weather-wise.
“My job was to find the weather,” he said. “I basically say, ‘This is the day or days I think you should do it.’ You have to have nearly calm winds for more than 12 hours in a row, which is not easy to do. That's why we don't do these projects in Wyoming.”
Day was tasked with finding the best opportunity to shoot the video and safely perform the stunt. He spent a week using his meteorological expertise to find the best day for it in Greenville, North Carolina, where the video was shot.
“Cluster balloons are, as you can imagine, very sensitive to the wind,” Day said. “Assembling a cluster of 500-plus balloons is a lot of work and expense. You have to have perfect weather, so that's where I got involved.”
It was even more difficult for Day to find a day with good weather that aligned with MrBeast’s dense schedule and gave the team enough time to stage the stunt. The 15-second video took 50 people, 10 hours and 2,000 cubic meters of helium to make.
The T-Mobile store MrBeast started sending into the stratosphere wasn’t real. It was a custom-made cluster balloon load ring with the facade of a storefront.
“It's actually a very significant engineering process to get it done,” Day said. “You can't attach these balloons to a two-by-four. You have to spread out the stress with custom-made lines that go from the balloons to the structure.”
MrBeast chronicled the process as balloons were added to the cluster. Eventually, the T-Mobile store was lifted off the ground and into the air, seeming to take MrBeast with it.
“I’ve still got service up here,” MrBeast shouts from the sky.
Trappe Craft
Day didn’t go to Greenville for the shoot. The logistics were handled by Johnathan Trappe, an IT guy with a side business as the world’s go-to cluster balloonist.
“He's flown across the English Channel and tried to cross the Atlantic Ocean,” Day said. “I've worked with Jonathan for quite a while, helping him with the weather. I don’t know how many years, but it's been quite a while.”
In April 2021, Trappe set the world record for the longest cluster balloon flight, flying for 14 hours and covering 109 miles. In 2009, Disney hired Trappe to promote the Pixar film “Up” by floating over the United States in an armchair lifted by cluster balloons.
Day has been the weather guy for Trappe’s cluster balloon projects. For the 2009 project, Day scouted the weather for Trappe, finding the best times and places to go up for Up.
“He’s a really smart guy who’s perfected how to put these cluster balloons together,” he said.
Balloon Weather
Day’s unique career niche has taken him across the country and around the world. He helps professional balloonists find the best days to go up and stay safe when the going gets tough.
In September, Day helped three teams in the 2024 Gordon Bennett Cut, the oldest gas balloon race in the world. He was on the ground, giving weather updates to the balloon pilots as they soared over Europe.
Day and Trappe have helped other celebrities reach the greatest heights of their careers. In 2020, they collaborated on an ambitious stunt with David Blaine.
“He did a cluster balloon project where he flew up to 25,000 feet over Arizona,” he said. “It was another YouTube thing.”
For every successful Blaine stunt or MrBeast video, there are dozens of other cluster balloon projects that don’t materialize. But if anyone sees a bunch of balloons lifting people or places into the sky, there’s a good chance Day’s involved.
“People see stuff like this and think they can do cluster balloons for something, but sometimes that's not practical,” he said. “But if they have the time and resources, and they're willing to put in the time and resources to do it correctly and safely, then I'll get involved.”
Contact Andrew Rossi at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
