LAWN CHAIR LARRY

Lawnchair Larry
Lawnchair Larry
This happened?
This story has been widely disbelieved by skeptics, but it really happened.  Rich Buhler was hosting a radio talk show from Los Angeles in 1982 when Larry Walters' historic flight took place in from nearby San Pedro and he covered the story for his audience.  It was widely reported by the news media at the time and Larry Walters became something of a folk hero for his daredevil solo flight.

According to published reports, Walters was employed as a truck driver in Southern California.  On July 2, 1982, he fastened 42 surplus balloons to a lawn chair and launched from his girlfriend's San Pedro home.  He carried various supplies with him as well as a CB radio and a BB gun to shoot balloons one at a time to descend.  He didn't realize how powerful the buoyancy of the balloons was.  When he cut a rope holding him to terra firma, he took off with such a jolt that another anchor rope broke under the stress and he shot upward so quickly that his eyeglasses flew to the ground.  He floated around the L.A. basin for several hours and reached altitudes of up to 16,000 feet.  According to an article in the New York Times the next day, Walters was spotted by pilots from both TWA and Delta Airlines.  It was cold at 16,000 feet and he started shooting some of his balloons to descend, but dropped his BB gun and had to wait for his rig to come down on its own.  He landed in a residential neighborhood in Long Beach where got tangled in some power lines, causing a power blackout.  He told reporters that his weather balloon flight had been a dream of more than 20 years.  Larry Walters died eleven years after his flight from what the Los Angeles Times described as a self-inflected gunshot wound. 

Myths dispelled

Many exaggerated or simply inaccurate stories have circulated around the Web regarding Walters' flight. The following facts have been confirmed from interviews with his friends and family, and by analysing a recording of his CB radio transmissions.
  • Larry was launched from his girlfriend Carol Van Deusen's backyard in San Pedro, California with the assistance of another friend, Ron Richlin.
  • Larry dropped his glasses during lift-off, but had a spare pair with him, and radioed his "ground crew," saying, "I can see perfectly ­ don't worry." (Later in the flight, when his girlfriend reported she had found his glasses, he replied "Well, that's good news.")
  • Larry did not pass near LAX, but rather Long Beach airport, where TWA and Delta airlines pilots sighted him and reported him to the tower.
  • Larry came down in a residential area north-east of Long Beach airport.
  • Larry did not drop his gun during lift-off.
  • Larry did float over Long Beach harbour but did not float out to sea.
  • Larry did not, as some newspapers reported, purchase the balloons from an Army Navy surplus store, but a balloon supplier.
  • Larry's intention was that this would be a long-distance flight, and he planned for it accordingly. Newspapers incorrectly reported that his plan was "to lazily float around the area and then come back down in a few hours."
  • Larry was not rescued by a helicopter, but rather came down on his own will while possibly trying to land in an open field.
  • Larry's chair was a piece of patio furniture, not a folding lawn chair.
  • Larry gave the lawn chair away to a neighbourhood kid. Today that same person still has the chair (with ballast water jugs and tethers still attached).
  • Larry paid $1,500 after battling the FAA. Of 4 total charges, some were dropped (it was decided that his lawn chair did not need an airworthiness certificate) and Larry admitted to one other (not establishing and maintaining two-way contact with the airport control tower). According to the FAA, "The flight was potentially unsafe, but Walters had not intended to endanger anyone".