I've Got My Balloons

Now Where's My Helium?


One of my Blog Idols, Roger, over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical, mentioned this FOX news story about a guy attaching a bunch of helium balloons to a lawn chair and taking a little flight across country.

BEND, Ore. — Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks — and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.

Destination: Idaho.

With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast — he could turn a spigot, release water and rise — Couch headed into the Oregon sky.

Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.

Is that not cool as heck...or what?

Of course, as has become to be usual, Mr. Couch and his amazing flying lawn chair risked the wrath of the imperial Federal Government of The United By God States Of America in making his little expedition--IF he had violated any "controlled airspace" coming under the jurisdiction of the FAA:

Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters — who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules.

That was one of the things that bothered me the most back in the days when I was still flying an airplane..."controlled airspace."

It just wasn't over places like airports and the Pentagon, today it includes places like football stadiums and Disney world, and if just the act of successfully taking off and flying an airplane isn't difficult enough, now the government makes three quarters of the country off limits if you are flying anywhere under the altitude of what is usually described as "orbit."

I swear to God if I were twenty again I'd be tempted to strap a few dozen big balloons to my new bike and take a similar trip myself.

Fortunately, for my Mother and the FAA, I'm way past twenty and will be spending my day tomorrow at my construction job site, and the highest I'll be getting off the ground will be when I'm up fooling around on the roof finishing doing some cleaning in anticipation of installing some new metal panels.

I'm sweating just thinking about the process...