Some weeks ago I mentioned that I was sceptical about the story of a Californian man who, having strapped himself into a garden chair, soared to 16 000ft - that's almost 5 000m and far higher than South Africa's highest point and in fact higher than the Rockies or the Alps. He had harnessed the chair to 42 weather balloons in his girlfriend's garden in San Pedro near Long Beach, Los Angeles.
I assumed it was an urban legend.
It turns out to be true. A Sandton reader, Colin Pepin, emailed photographs of the event. The man who did it was Larry Walters (33), a truck driver.
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On July 2, 1982 he tethered an aluminium garden chair to the ground, filled the weather balloons with helium and attached them to the chair and then strapped himself in.
Also strapped to the chair were several 5l bottles of water for ballast.
In the photograph the 2m-wide balloons appear to be in four bunches floating several storeys high above the garden chair.
Walters is wearing a parachute and is carrying several items including a citizen band radio and an air pistol. The pellet gun was to pop the balloons once he was at a satisfactory altitude so that he could then descend.
The story was apparently widely reported although I have no recollection of seeing it at the time. Walters became something of a folk hero.
Not realising how powerful the pull of the balloons would be he had two friends hold on to the chair while he cut the mooring ropes. The rig took off with such a jolt that it snapped the last rope and tore itself free of the hands of Larry's friends. It went up like a rocket.
Walters' spectacles flew off but this didn't seem to spoil his personal enjoyment.
The flight was over an intensely developed area and near an airport and Walters became somewhat alarmed as the houses, at a terrifying rate, grew smaller and smaller.
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