To make a long story short, a guy attaches a few hundred helium balloons to his lawn chair…and floats across the better half of the State of Oregon!
He actually emulated a guy who did the same back in the 1980’s - the guy ties all these helium balloons to his lawn chair…brings a gun with him to shoot down the balloons when he decides it’s finally time to descend…thinks that maybe he’ll go up a few hundred feet…and actually shoots up to 15,000 feet, scares the bejezzuz out of an airline pilot, yada yada yada ends up getting a citation for violating air space.
Let’s see…193 miles in 9 hours…HEY, THAT’S 21 MILES PER HOUR…ALMOST AS FAST AS THE AVERAGE CLASS I RAILROAD![:-,]
Very interesting. [(-D] Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to see the world from above (I’ve never been on an airplane). But…naa, I’d rather stay on the ground.
For one thing, how in the world did he know for sure he was going to Idaho? Can’t the wind take you anywhere it pleases? I guess it would be kind of adventurous, but…
This sounds like an urban myth to me. On mythbusters (a show who’s conclusions I disagree with quite often) they couldn’t get a little girl who weighed about forty pounds off the ground with hundreds of balloons (like 900).
On CNN This AM was a story, and photo of this character in his rig[oX)]…They did indicate he had a parachute…[#oops] another potential Darwin candidate.[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Hello… this is your captain speaking. We’re on approach to LAX now. If you look to your right you’ll be able to see the Pacific Ocean. If you look to your left you’ll be able to wave to some nut job floating by in a lawn chair with a bunch of ballons tied to it.
Ok… copy that. Guy in a lawn chair at 13,000 ft. We’re aware of him. Just asked him to reduce to 9,000 ft turn left 14 degrees and line up for approach on runway 27L. LAX Tower out.
What’s the difference between a basket (hot air ballon) and a lawn chair?