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The lawn-chair man (true story)Larry Walters went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 40 or so weather balloons and several tanks of helium. He tied the balloons to his lawn chair in four bunches and tied the chair to the bumper of his car. He pumped the balloons up with helium - all 40 of them. He packed sandwiches and a six-pack of beer (Miller Light). He loaded his pellet gun thinking that he would pop a few balloons when he had finished the beer and it was time to come down. The plan was to float up over his back yard a ways and come down for dinner ... |
Radar confirmed the presence of a floating object at 5000 meters. The authorities went into full alert and sent a helicopter to have a closer look. At about this time, the evening off-shore breeze intensified and carried Larry out over the sea with the helicopter after him. The helicopter was carefully positioned a hundred meters above the upper balloons and a line was lowered. Larry snagged the line. He was lifted out of his chair .... which promptly ascended skywards .... and hauled aboard. He was met at the airport by Los Angeles finest, who arrested him for violating reserved airspace |
... but things didn't
quite work out that way for Larry. He had his photo taken and
then carefully leant over and cut the rope holding the chair
and the balloons to the car. He shot up into the Los Angeles
sky like a cannon ball; more or less straight up to a height
of 5000 meters. He came to rest over the airport. He was too
frightened at that height to shoot at any balloons, so he hung
on in the chair and waited for something to happen. Cold and
frightened, 14 hours later, he drifted in to the primary approach
corridor for Los Angeles Airport ... where he was seen by a passing
Pan Am pilot ... who radioed the tower, saying that he had just
passed a guy in a lawn-chair with a gun!