Lawn Chair Larry

Larry Walters was a Vietnam vet who had always dreamt of being a pilot. Poor eyesight kept him from flying. But at 11 am, on July 2nd, 1982, Larry took flight from the backyard of his girlfriend's home in San Pedro, California.

Larry tied 42 helium-filled eight-foot weather balloons to his lawn chair, donned a parachute, and strapped himself into his chair. He brought his pellet gun, a CB radio, a camera, water jugs for ballast, a few sandwiches and some beer.

Larry thought he might rise about 100 feet. A friend who cut the cord that attached the lawn chair to Larry's Jeep, recalled that Larry ascended like a homesick angel. He reached 16,000 feet and eventually entered controlled airspace as he crossed into the primary approach for Long Beach Airport.

Incoming planes reported to the Long Beach control tower what they were seeing: “This is TWA 231, level at 16,000 feet. We have a man in a chair attached to balloons in our ten-o’clock position, range five miles.”

Larry knew he was in trouble and used his CB radio to call the Citizens Band Monitoring Station: "Ah, the difficulty is, ah, this was an unauthorized balloon launch, and, uh, I know I'm in a federal airspace, and, uh, I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the proper authority. But, uh, just call them and tell them I'm okay.” He shot several balloons with his pellet gun, before he accidentally dropped it overboard. Larry descended slowly, got caught in a power line, causing a blackout, but returned to Earth unharmed.

Larry was arrested. The FAA, unable to revoke the pilot license of a man who didn’t even have one, instead slapped him with four charges and fined him $4000. The agency eventually conceded on one of the charges: a lawn chair does not, in fact, require an airworthiness certificate, and reduced the fine to $1500.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC includes a 1903 Wright Bros flyer, the Apollo 11 Command Module, Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B and Larry Walter’s Sears lawn chair from Sears, attached to some of the original tethers and water jugs.