# 25 years ago today: Lawnchair Larry
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 2, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201 "2007-07-02T04:59:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/1 "2007-07-02T04:59:33Z")
On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters decided to live out his lifelong dream of flying. He filled 42 weather balloons with helium and tied them to a metal lawn chair, planning to go up a few hundred feet or so, float out toward the Mojave Desert, then come back down by shooting some of the balloons with an air pistol. 42 weather balloons filled with helium, however, produces a lot more lift than Larry had anticipated. He shot into the air when his anchor rope broke, quickly reaching an altitude of three miles with winds pushing him in the neighborhood of LAX.
After 90 minutes, he shot out some of the balloons and began floating back down, landing unhurt. After searching through the rulebooks, the FAA hit him with several charges for recklessness and fined him $1500.
Larry attempted to parlay his feat into a career of sorts, appearing on Letterman and doing an ad for Timex. Sadly, fame was fleeting, and his stint as a motivational speaker was a brief one. After a breakup and lengthy unemployment, Larry hiked into Angeles National Forest and shot himself in 1993.
Larry has always been a combination of inspiration and cautionary tale for me. On the one hand, he was determined to achieve his dream no matter how audacious, unconventional or, well… stupid. He wasn’t smarter, stronger or richer than anyone else (in fact, being smarter or richer might have led him to try something else); anyone could have done what he did, but he was the one who simply went ahead and did it. On the other hand, he’s an excellent illustration of not building a career on one success; you need to be ready to follow up with new achievements, or be content with going back to how things were.
Anyway, happy anniversary Larry. That was one hell of a ride.
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### Author:  [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/2 "2007-07-02T05:21:21Z")
Y’know, flying up there in a lawn chair would, on the one hand, be rather cool. Floating all alone up there, three miles high (wouldn’t the air be a bit thin?), no noise, just floating on the breeze. On the other hand … it’s a frickin’ lawn chair. I mean, the wrong gust of wind could have turned that chair into a dunking booth, except without any water at the bottom, just three empty miles of HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I AM SO FRICKIN’ DEAD.
The stunt was crazy as hell, of course, and however odd his dream was, at least he had the gusto to go for it. So, here’s to you, Larry, for doing what no one else did – or would ever do again, because, man … who in the their right mind?
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/3 "2007-07-02T05:27:43Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight]
He shot into the air when his anchor rope broke, quickly reaching an altitude of three miles with winds pushing him in the neighborhood of LAX.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, Long Beach Airport.
> **[Lawnchair Larry flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)**
>
> On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters (April 19, 1949 – October 6, 1993) made a 45-minute flight in a homemade aerostat made of an ordinary lawn chair and 42 helium-filled weather balloons. The aircraft rose to an altitude of about 16,000 feet (4,900 m), drifted from the point of liftoff in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, and entered controlled airspace near Long Beach Airport. During the final descent, the aircraft became entangled in power lines, but Walters was able to climb
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/4 "2007-07-02T06:10:11Z")
I wish I could hear the radio conversation between the tower and the first plane to see him up there.
"Tower, this is Delta 475 from Phoenix, uh… there’s a man up here. "
“There’s a passenger in the cockpit?”
“Uh… no.”
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### Author:  [@astcell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astcell)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/5 "2007-07-02T06:23:10Z")
I remember that like it was yesterday. I think they did a movie on the guy too.
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### Author:  [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/6 "2007-07-02T06:26:10Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight]
I wish I could hear the radio conversation between the tower and the first plane to see him up there.
"Tower, this is Delta 475 from Phoenix, uh… there’s a man up here. "
“There’s a passenger in the cockpit?”
“Uh… no.”
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it must have taken some time to convince the tower staff that the pilots spotting him were not raging drunk. How did they manage it?
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/7 "2007-07-02T06:36:02Z")
All the Larrys (and Darryls) of the world should be proud of him.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/8 "2007-07-02T10:44:39Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield]
The stunt was crazy as hell, of course, and however odd his dream was, at least he had the gusto to go for it. So, here’s to you, Larry, for doing what no one else did – or would ever do again, because, man … who in the their right mind?
[/QUOTE]
Adam Savage did. And even though there are doubts whether Adam is ever in his right mind, at least he was tethered so as to go up only about 75 feet or so.
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### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/9 "2007-07-02T11:13:58Z")
It went like “Tower, I’ve got a man up here in a lawnchair with a gun.”; which is certainly one of the more improbable things they get to hear. I bet his wife was pissed, though.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/10 "2007-07-02T12:19:52Z")
And no-one’s said “Hats off to Larry!”?
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### Author:  [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/11 "2007-07-02T12:51:39Z")
3 miles high…I’ll bet he became a Christian during that flight.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/12 "2007-07-02T13:07:03Z")
[Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/walters.asp) has a great article on Larry. It is where I first heard about him. He inspired someone else to try it too:
> [@](#):
>
> Although Larry Walters never made another balloon flight, he did inspire someone else to try the same feat. On 1 January 1984, a licensed pilot, parachutist, and chute rigger named Kevin Walsh outfitted himself with 57 weather balloons, each six feet in diameter. Armed with five knives and carrying a parachute, Walsh tethered himself to the helium-filled balloons (no chair) and took off from Minuteman Airfield in Stow, Massachusetts, at 7:00 AM on New Year’s Day. He shot into the sky even faster than Larry had, hitting the 1,000-foot mark in twelve seconds, reaching 6,000 feet in two minutes, and peaking at 9,000 feet after four minutes.
>
> When one of Walsh’s balloons popped, he came back down to 6,000 feet and settled in to enjoy the view. He had wrapped his tether lines in foil in the hope that they would show up on radar, and, sure enough, he was picked up on the screens of controllers at Boston’s Logan airport, where he produced a radar blip the size of three stacked jetliners. After a 45-minute flight Walsh cut himself free of the balloons and parachuted to the ground, landing in Hudson and walking away. Kevin claimed that he had been planning his flight for seven years and did it “just to make a positive statement about mankind.” Walters had been his inspiration: “I had to commend him for his ingenuity. That’s when my dream hooked up with reality.” Kevin Walsh soon found himself the recipient of the same kind of attention as his hero when he was cited with four violations of FAA regulations and fined $4,000.
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### Author:  [@Dottygumdrop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dottygumdrop)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/13 "2007-07-02T13:11:09Z")
[QUOTE=astcell]
I remember that like it was yesterday. I think they did a movie on the guy too.
[/QUOTE]
If I recall, the movie was called “Deckchair Danny” - made in Australia and starring the Welsh guy who played Hugh Whatshisname’s flatmate in Notting Hill.
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/14 "2007-07-02T14:54:49Z")
Uncle Cecil’s comments on same: [Did somebody once go aloft in a lawn chair tied to a bunch of helium balloons?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_131.html)
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/15 "2007-07-02T16:31:33Z")
[QUOTE=cochrane]
Adam Savage did. And even though there are doubts whether Adam is ever in his right mind, at least he was tethered so as to go up only about 75 feet or so.
[/QUOTE]
This was the episode that put me off of Mythbusters. They kept talking about the myth of Lawnchair Larry. If it really happened it is not a myth. One minute of half-assed Google fu would have told them that. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/16 "2007-07-02T16:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=astcell]
I remember that like it was yesterday. I think they did a movie on the guy too.
[/QUOTE]
The movie was _Danny Deckchair_, a Australian romantic comedy that ended much more happily for the titular balloonatic.
I would think a chaise-longue would have provided the best stability, though worst visibility of the ground below.
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/17 "2007-07-02T16:58:27Z")
[QUOTE=Rick]
This was the episode that put me off of Mythbusters. They kept talking about the myth of Lawnchair Larry. If it really happened it is not a myth. One minute of half-assed Google fu would have told them that. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
The showed Lawnchair Larry at the end, including his FAA citation.
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/18 "2007-07-02T17:57:31Z")
By the way, anyone who is fascinated and inspired by this story (as I am) should at all costs AVOID the movie [Danny Deckchair](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337960/).
The balloon-chair is just a plot device to get Rhys Ifans (whom I like a lot) into some quaint and quirky little town where he falls in love and teaches the locals to enjoy life and maybe saves the town hall or something at the end. I don’t remember the denouement too clearly, because by that time I was reading a book.
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### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/19 "2007-07-02T18:22:32Z")
IIRC, his stunt was also “replicated” on something like the A-Team or other TV show where the hero(oes) would whip some kind of improbably gadget out of their ass to save the day.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/25-years-ago-today-lawnchair-larry/410201/20 "2007-07-10T17:27:17Z")
Larry continues to inspire… [http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/flying.lawn.chair.ap/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/flying.lawn.chair.ap/index.html)
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