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Jun 24, 2013 · BATTLE GROUND — After floating in his lawn chair at more than 15,000 feet Saturday, what really jolted Joe Barbera was a one-inch drop. At that point, Barbera and his balloon-equipped lawn...
- Tom Vogt
Jun 25, 2013 · June 25, 2013 / 2:32 PM. Amateur lawn chair balloonist gets stuck in tree. Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter. BATTLE GROUND, Wash., June 25 (UPI) -- A Washington state man who flew at a height of...
Jun 22, 2013 · - A lawn chair balloonist who set out to break a world record for distance traveled landed in a South Washington forest Saturday afternoon just a few hours after he lifted off in his homemade...
- “Lawnchair Larry” Walters
- Mike Howard and Steve Davis
- Kent Couch
- Jonathan Trappe
- Joe Barbera
Poor eyesight kept Larry Walters, a North Hollywood truck driver, from enlisting in the Air Force as a pilot. So Walters picked up 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store and tethered them to his “extremely comfortable” aluminum Sears lawn chair—a project that cost about 4000 bucks. With a pellet gun, some sandwiches, and a bottle of Mi...
Left as a footnote in lawnchair balloonist history, Brit Mike Howard and American Steve Davis earned a paragraph in the 2008 Guinness Book of World Recordsfor the Greatest Altitude Reached Using Helium Filled Party Balloons, which seems oddly specific for a world record. On August 4, 2001, the duo flew 18,300 feet over Albuquerque, New Mexico using...
Kent Couch’s first crack at lawn chair flight was a mess: In September 2006, the Oregonian gas station owner got himself stranded in the air for 6 hours, eventually shooting down a few balloons with a BB gun and parachuting out of his chair. Almost a year later, Couch took his lawn chair, some snacks, and another parachute for a flight he hoped wou...
An American adventurer abroad, Trappe hoisted a wicker chair (decked out with oxygen masks, satellite navigation, and an emergency beacon) over the English Channel with 54 oversized helium balloons. Setting off from the Kent Gliding Club in Ashford, Trappe—a trained pilot—landed in a cabbage patchin France 22 miles and four hours later. Trappe, who...
This 60-year-old semi-retired engineer planned on floating his lawn chair some 200 miles from Washington to “somewhere in Oregon,” but Barbera chair-wrecked into a 40-foot tree in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Rescuers bailed him outafter the 80-balloon contraption soared over 21,000 feet—way higher than Barbera anticipated. Barbera and his ...
Jun 21, 2013 · BATTLE GROUND — Just after the sun started to rise above the trees Saturday morning, Joe Barbera rode his lawn chair toward the clouds. Barbera achieved a dream of 30 years when a cluster of...
Jun 7, 2013 · Photo. Lawn Chair Pilots. Joe Barbera and his team will launch a cluster of three weather balloons and a modest payload Sunday morning from a field next to his house. If things work out well...
