# 30 Years Later, It's a Flying House **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 24, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994 "2012-11-24T17:22:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/1 "2012-11-24T17:22:12Z")
Back in 1988, Cecil [wrote a column about Larry Walters](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/702/did-somebody-once-go-aloft-in-a-lawn-chair-tied-to-a-bunch-of-helium-balloons), who took his lawn chair for a flight. Earlier this month,Jonathan Trappe successfully [test flew a house](http://io9.com/5962452/cluster-balloonist-re+creates-the-floating-house-from-up-in-preparation-for-trans+atlantic-crossing), and is hoping to fly it across the Atlantic. I just hope he cleared it with the FAA. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/2 "2012-11-24T17:29:02Z")
BTW, the column was written in 1988 and says Larry’s flight was in 1982, but it also says that the flight was 16, not 6, years earlier. What’s the correct date, 1982 or 1972? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/3 "2012-11-24T17:35:17Z")
I remember that happening right around when I graduated High School so 1982. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/4 "2012-11-24T17:39:10Z")
It is about time there were some laws restricting the frivolous use of helium. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/5 "2012-11-25T08:13:00Z")
Don’t you see the gravity of the situation? ---
**Author:** ![bahimes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@bahimes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bahimes)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/6 "2012-11-29T07:07:11Z")
When I first read the title, i saw “…Flying Horse”. They cloned Pegasus! NM. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/7 "2012-11-29T12:52:28Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > BTW, the column was written in 1988 and says Larry’s flight was in 1982, but it also says that the flight was 16, not 6, years earlier. What’s the correct date, 1982 or 1972? MY guess: columns are sometimes updated when they appear in a book, and that may be what happened to that column. I’ll have someone check into it; if it’s a typo (16 instead of 6) we’ll get 'er fixed. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-later-its-a-flying-house/641994/8 "2012-11-29T15:45:53Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > BTW, the column was written in 1988 and says Larry’s flight was in 1982, but it also says that the flight was 16, not 6, years earlier. What’s the correct date, 1982 or 1972? I suspect this was one of those Classic Columns that was updated when TSD was on AOL, there was a lot of little updates like that, AOL wanted everything updated to present day/time. 16 years from 1982 would have put the timeframe at 1998, in the AOL years. Might have also been a conversion error. These columns have been rendered and stored in many forms since their original composition, including printing in the _Reader_, printed in books, stored and rendered on AOL, stored and rendered on the _Reader_ website, stored and rendered on the _Creative Loafing_ … and been stored on a couple different servers as well. Going from one format to the other, sometimes stuff doesn’t translate well/convert properly. When you consider all they’ve been through over the years, I’m surprised they’re even legible. 🙂 It’s six years from the date of the original column, so for consistency I have changed it back to 6.