Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale.
When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn’t level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.
At that height he felt he couldn’t risk shooting any of the balloons. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where startled Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.
Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. Larry was then arrested. Larry’s efforts won him a $1,500 FAA fine, a prize from the Bonehead Clubof Dallas, the altitude record for gas-filled clustered balloons, and a Darwin Awards At-Risk Survivor.
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FOR LARRY WALTERS, WHO DREAMED SINCE HE WAS A CHILD OF USING BALLOONS TO FLY; WHO IN 1982 SPENT FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS OF HIS TRUCK-DRIVING DELIVERYMAN SALARY TO BUY SUPPLIES, INCLUDING ONE LAWN CHAIR, FORTY-TWO BALLOONS, AND A HELIUM TANK, WHICH HE USED TO INFLATE THE BALLOONS, ARRANGING THEM IN A RING AROUND THE LAWN CHAIR, A STURDY ALUMINUM TYPE FROM SEARS, IN WHICH HE LAUNCHED HIMSELF ALONG WITH HIS PELLET GUN AND WATER JUGS A THOUSAND FEET A MINUTE INTO THE CALIFORNIA SKY, WITH THE GOAL OF CLEARING THE SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS TO REACH THE MOJAVE; WHO AGAINST ALL ODDS FLEW, FROM A BACKYARD IN SAN PEDRO TO LONG BEACH, AN IMPERFECT MAN ON AN IMPERFECT FLIGHT PATH, WHO BROUGHT HIS CAMERA BUT DIDN’T USE IT; WHO, UPON HIS ARREST BY THE LONG BEACH POLICE, WAS QUOTED AS SAYING A MAN CAN’T JUST SIT AROUND…..
FUCK YES LARRY YOU DID IT BABY
Amelia Gray - FOR LARRY
(via @reptilemodernism)
