Up in the Air

Answer: BALLOON

Explanation: The main useful component of air to us humans is oxygen, whose chemical formula is O2. Note that several of the down entries - several in fact - have two Os separated by a few letters. For instance: ONAHOP has the word HAN in the middle, and this can also satisfy the clue for OBI. We'll do that with several of the down entries: ONOAHOP (HAN, OBI); SHOEBOX (BE, OWE); OLEOS (EL, LOS); ONION (IN, NEW); BONITOS (TIN, LID); MONACO (CAN; AXE); ROMEO (EM, BEE). The new entries are symmetrically placed, and their initial letters spell out BALLOON, going from bottom-left to upper-right, as if the balloon were being guided upward through the grid.

Ok WOW! This was one of those puzzles where the whole way I was doubting that that could possibly be the right path, but I just kept going until there it was! Really liked how the final answer stair-stepped up across the grid, too. That's a damn fine puzzle!

WOW!!! What an amazing meta, and that's not just a lot of hot air. Thanks, Mikey!

Awesome sauce! ;) That was fun! ... I was expecting something with George Clooney and his obsession with Flight 106. :D jk

Really enjoyed this with a group solve of JHSeeman and Berto. I would never have gotten step one, since I have always believed Oxygen is O.

Fun! With MGWCC and Negroni I totally spaced on this. Great to have a Saturday afternoon surprise meta, and an awesome one. Thanks for superb summer Saturday specials!!

Wow! That was one of my most satisfying solves. Had to bring a lot of experience and tools to the table, but boy did it all pay off. Thanks for a great puzzle!

Needed a ton of help as I went off on a Star Wars tangent because I had HAH first.

This one was HARD! I of course went the UP route, trying to reconcile the UP and the U??P and the U’s and the P’s and getting nowhere. I tried reading things “up” and there were some but not enough and nothing made sense. Finally I gave up and sent an e-mail request for assistance, and of course that was the catalyst. I went back and did something that usually does not help me at all until I analyze after the fact; I tried Mechapuzzle. Abnormal number of Os…so what. Now hold on here, didn’t I just have something sort of like this? Yep, O’s as in O2 or oxygen. SO I took the letters between all of them and got NOTHING. How can it be 9 letters???? OK, maybe it is something like “AN ???????”. But the words NAH, EM, EB,…LEW “WHAT”? OK, let’s go UP HAN, ME so, Star Wars, Advanced degree…I see where this is going. Obviously I was off because I tried to use all 9 O2 pairs, but I got enough of the letters that I saw it was balloon and then I got to see what I should have done.

VERY clever puzzle and construction, I want to thank my two muggle friends who I asked for help and got to the trick before they could respond. Often just asking makes it easier because you drop the panic of not being able to see what everyone sees and look for what you need to. The alternates were extremely well hidden.

I’m impressed!

Wow, beautifully executed, Mikey!

Wow, INSANELY clever! First puzzle of yours I've played before the reveal and I'm blown away! (no pun intended)

Initially I was completely lead on by SEALUP, which I somehow noticed perfectly fit into PUHLEASE when read up. With the clue being [Make airtight, perhaps], I was convinced I was on the right track, and started looking for all kinds of air-related words in the clues. The clues for OBOE, MAXINE, and LAND had wind, gale, and cloud respectively. Plus OBOE anagrammed into SHOEBOX, so I got to one of the actual meta clues by accident.

Eventually I figured out something was up with MONACO, BONITOS, SHOEBOX, and ONAHOP by myself, and even found the connection between HAN and OBI, but it took your first batch of hints on the forum to completely figure it out. Finally got BALLOON five days after finishing the actual puzzle lol, very fun!

Feel like I've been dragged across the finish line!

This was another super amazing meta that was sadly beyond my meager/meagre skills. After the early nudges, I was like, oh hey, NITROGEN is the most prevalent component of air, and it's really important because you can die if you just suck on pure oxygen (or at least that's what the internet told me). After I got nudged to oxygen, I saw the O-O words, and wrote down HAN BE EM IN EL TIN CAN but I was trying to make that make sense, especially with the TIN CAN at the end. Then after the last nudges, I matched up CAN with LID and couldn't find a place for TIN, but I had OOBNLL which looked like BALLOON if I squinted a bit. Now that I'm typing all this out, I see that EM could match OWE. Fortunately I didn't fall into that rabbit hole. I am not worthy of these metas.

Whatever the opposite of SOLOED is... nicely describes my aimless drifting this week... until your UBEr nudges (the opposite of NO HELP) came to my rescue!

needed the nudges to finally find my way. Thanks Mikey!

I was not able to solve, but reviewing the solution I see an alternate alternate clue for the TIN from BONITOS. I feel 37A, [Carnation location] could be TIN. Carnation Milk is available in tins. That gave me the L from LAPEL, in the correct spot to make BALLOON, but not symmetrically placed like the intended solution, but still correct. I couldn’t get the answer anyway, but just saw that in my review. Did anyone else see that? Fantastic puzzle, Mikey!