Gizmodo
Ken Couch is the quintessential American adventurer. Last weekend, he hitched 105 helium balloons to a lawn chair and set out on a nine-hour adventure that took him to a height of 13,000 feet, traveling 193 miles from his home in Bend, Oregon, all the way to the other side of the state.
Loading up his lawn chair with gadgets such as a GPS system, two-way radio, altimeter, wind gauge, camcorder and a cellphone, he set out early Saturday morning. Learning from a six-hour trip in his balloon-equipped lawn chair last September where he ascended to 15,000 feet, on this voyage he was better equipped. He loaded up four 5-gallon containers with water as ballast, and to make the chair rise, he simply opened a spigot. Instead of releasing balloons to descend as he did on his previous trip, which caused a harrowing descent where he ended up using a parachute to save his life, this time he was able to gradually release helium for a gentler landing.
Nine hours later, he safely set down his homemade craft in a farmer's field 193 miles away, after traveling at an average speed of around 21mph. Said Couch to a local newspaper, "When you're a little kid and you're holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind... When you're laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them. This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It's just like that."
You're right, Ken. We've always wanted to try this. [KOMO-TV/AP]
Comments
I heard that the last guy to try this finished the final mile in a free fall.
Is this true?
-I wish I had a rocket-lawnchair.
didn't myth busters smash this myth or did they get it wrong?
They used something like a few thousand balloons to lift a 9year old girl only a few feet?
I believe they used smaller carnival available balloons. From this picture those balloons look huge.
ah, I missed the link, "Attached to the lawn chair were 105 balloons of various colors, each 4 feet around. Bundled together, the balloons rise three stories high."
HUGE ballons.
What kind of GPS and cell phone did he bring? Was it an iPhone?
Wow, what I wouldn't give for a BB gun ;)
Mythbusters lifted a lawn chair with Adam in it with a similar rig using these type of large balloons.
The balloons with the kid mentioned above was just whether a little kid could float away at a carnival if handed a bunch of normal balloons.
well if you look closely at the pic posted above, those balloons are definitely bigger than our standard birthday party balloon.
The original guy with this idea did this years ago, he's the only man to survive and still get a darwin award. He went on to release a song about it, before shooting himself through the heart. Whole story is on the Darwin Awards website.
Didn't anyone see the movie "Danny Deckchair"?
Has anyone heard of a technique called "moonbouncing" or moonjumping? I swear I saw a website a while back about this. Basically, you tie enough large balloons to yourself to offset your weight to near 0, and then you go jumping. sounds awesome, wish I knew how to do it.
Ah, I guess 'balloon jumping' is pretty old school.
1927 Time article on balloon jumping
Here's a video
I love this story. And the picture is priceless.
WOW, I wish I had free time at home to come up with a device like this!
for anyone who's curious: [en.wikipedia.org]
I wonder what the FAA has to say about it.
Hell no. I'd shit myself. Or anything below me rather.
If the entire assemblage weighs less than 500 lbs. ( before the helium is put in ), carries only one person, and contains less than 5 gallons of fuel, it counts as an ultralight, and is unregulated by the FAA.
As long as you stay out of controlled airspace ( near tower controlled airports and military practice areas ), you are legal.
I wonder what would be worse: this or a 19-second rocket pack?
In terms of dying a shit-covered-pants death, that is...
How much did all the Helium cost? I seem to remember that when the Mythbusters lifted Adam, their Helium bill ran about 8000 dollars.
I guess the MythBusters would have to recheck this one right?
Total crazy, totally badass. Kudos to this guy - can you believe the first time he tried it he ended up having to use his backup parachute to land safely? Call it BASEL jumping (you can figure out what the 'L' stands for :^)
Homeland Security has really suffered some budget cuts... Even I find this a little extreme to secure our borders! C'mon, Bush! You could at least give border patrol those cool parachute, fan-powered fliers!
This is too cool. Can you imagine the anxiety-mixed-exhilaration he must have felt up floating way up there.
@PJK
the Darwin awards give an award to people that cause themselves to become unable to reproduce, like someone that does something idiotic and cuts off his nads. There were several people that were given a Darwin award and continued living... if you call that living.
Guys... This is actually OLD news and nothing that hasn't already been done. Why this guy made the news is beyond me. Take a look here: [www.clusterballoon.org]
This will tell you everything you need to know about Cluster Ballooning. Essentially, it follows the same general rules as hot air balloons. No darwin awards needed here...this would actually be pretty fun!
I'm surprised nobody gave credit to larry Walters for being the original lawnchair baloonist.Larr's flight did not go to well but to my understanding he was the first and if not the clumsiest at it.His flight took place in 1982,long before the internet was around to tell his tale.
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.markbarry.com]
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