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Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

Old Jul 10, 2007, 1:06 pm
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Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

BEND, Oregon (AP) -- Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks -- and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.

Destination: Idaho.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/fly....ap/index.html

One way of avoiding TSA screening and other annoyances of commercial travel.
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 2:05 pm
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Totally cool!
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 2:07 pm
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The guy is an idiot. Balloon travel is for people who basically dont care where they are going.

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Old Jul 10, 2007, 6:12 pm
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Man, some people will do anything to avoid the TSA checks.
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 7:02 pm
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Didn't Mythbusters try that and basically fail?
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 7:08 pm
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I wonder if a fighter jet will escort such a flight to land because of unscheduled flight plan?
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 7:09 pm
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Originally Posted by l'etoile
Didn't Mythbusters try that and basically fail?
They also tried to use the emergency raft of the airplanes to use as a parachute. I think they succeeded in this one.
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 7:15 pm
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A great flight and an homage to the original Lawn Chair Man, Larry Walters who made his flight on July 2, 1982.

From snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/walters.asp

"As Larry and his lawnchair drifted into the approach path to Long Beach Municipal Airport, perplexed pilots from two passing Delta and TWA airliners alerted air traffic controllers about what appeared to be an unprotected man floating throught the sky in a chair."

Oh to have seen the looks on the faces!

Cheers Larry, you left us too soon. Kent: well done! I hope you get your video camera back.
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Old Jul 10, 2007, 7:40 pm
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I thought it was a great story, and I love the photo of him drifting though the blue sky.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 4:00 am
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Viva the Arm Chair Balloonists!
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 7:34 am
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There's a funny Australian movie, Danny Deckchair, about precisely this...
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Old Jul 12, 2007, 9:09 am
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Originally Posted by l'etoile
Didn't Mythbusters try that and basically fail?

Actually mythbusters succeeded. They had to use something like 500 regular size party ballons. But they were able to float a ca. 180 lb man (or in their case a manican.)
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Old Jul 12, 2007, 9:16 am
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Didn't Cutter John do this in "Bloom County" ca. 1986?
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Old Jul 12, 2007, 9:03 pm
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LOL! The guy should get frequent flyer miles
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Old Jul 12, 2007, 10:30 pm
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Lawnchair-Air (bring your own gun)

Awesome, the best part is he used a small caliber gun to shoot the ballons out when he wanted to land. LMAO

Yeah he should get triple-bonus-founder-elite-lifetime-lawnchair-air FF miles and a badge of courage too.

Seriously this guy is a fearless hero.
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