A Man Flew in a Chair Tied to 45 Balloons

… They cut the cord and seconds later, the man sitting on a lawn chair tied to a balloon cluster was soaring up among the clouds. This sounds like some kind of Up-style fairytale, but, believe it or not, this story actually happened for real in 1982!

Once upon a time, in 1949 to be more precise, a boy named Larry Walters was born in Los Angeles, California. He dreamed of the sky, but his dream to be a US Air Force pilot was not destined to come true because of his poor eyesight. So Larry became a truck driver and lived like any other person in San Pedro. But his love for the sky and his dream to fly didn’t go away though. Larry remembered an idea that occurred to him when he was 13. Back then, he first saw weather balloons hanging off the ceiling at a military store...