The Man Who Flew 16,000 Feet in a Lawn Chair

On July 2, 1982, a truck driver named Larry Walters did something that sounds like a cartoon fever dream. He strapped himself into a Sears lawn chair, attached 42 helium-filled weather balloons, and shot up nearly three miles into the sky over Los Angeles.

His plan? Float gently above his San Pedro backyard, enjoy some sandwiches and beer, then shoot a few balloons with a pellet gun to descend. What actually happened was considerably more dramatic.

Liftoff Gone Wild

Walters had calculated he'd rise to about 30 feet. Instead, when his friends cut the tether, he rocketed upward at 800 feet per minute. Within minutes, he was at 16,000 feet—higher than many small aircraft fly—freezing cold and struggling to breathe in the thin air.

Making matters worse, he'd dropped his pellet gun during the chaotic ascent. He managed to retrieve it, but now faced a terrifying choice: shoot too many balloons and plummet, or too few and keep climbing.

Into LAX Airspace

Meanwhile, commercial airline pilots were making some unusual radio calls to air traffic control:

• "Tower, we just passed a guy in a lawn chair."
• TWA and Delta pilots reported the bizarre sighting
• Controllers initially didn't believe the reports

Walters had drifted directly into the controlled airspace of Los Angeles International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world.

The Descent

After 45 minutes aloft, Walters carefully shot several balloons and began his descent. His luck held—mostly. The deflating balloon cluster snagged on power lines in Long Beach, causing a 20-minute blackout in the neighborhood below.

Walters climbed down unharmed. Waiting for him were reporters, spectators, and very unamused FAA officials.

"I've fulfilled my dream," he told reporters. "But I wouldn't do it again for anything."

The Aftermath

The FAA wasn't sure what to charge him with—there's no specific regulation against flying lawn chairs. They eventually fined him $4,000 for operating a "civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an airworthiness certificate" and entering airport airspace. The fine was later reduced to $1,500.

Walters became an instant celebrity. He appeared on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman, and his story inspired the 2003 Australian film Danny Deckchair.

His aircraft, officially dubbed Inspiration I, now sits in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum—a lawn chair among the space shuttles and fighter jets, testament to one man's gloriously absurd dream.