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The men who fall to earth
Nov. 25th, 2011 11:29 amIn 1982, Californian Larry Walters had what must have seemed at the time a bright idea. Combining a lifelong desire to fly with the observation that helium balloons float, he attached 45 large helium-filled balloons to his garden lounger, sat on it, and let got of his safety rope.
He had reasoned that he would spend the afternoon floating around about thirty feet in the air. Maybe he he'd shout amiable insults at his surprised and impressed neighbours from up there until, tired of bobbing about he'd pop a few ballons with the pellet gun he'd got with him and drift safely back down to earth.
You won't be surprised to learn that it didn't work out like that.
The balloons carried Larry to over 15,000 feet where he spent several hours drifting into the flightpath of LAX airport, too terrified to move or shoot any of the balloons in case his impromptu dirigible tipped up and launched him into a swan dive with a great view but a one-way ticket. Eventually he realised that if he didn't do something he'd die anyway, so started shooting balloons to return him to earth.Incredibly, he controlled his descent so well that he survived and was promptly arrested.
Even more fortunately for him the police couldn't decide what to charge him with - attaching oto garden furniture isn't a crime in California - and his contraption wasn't covered by any civil aviation laws because nobody had thought of it when they wrote the legislation. Eventually they fined him $1,500 on general principles and sent him home with a flea in his ear. When asked why he'd done it, Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."
The American government, never ones to let suicidal stupidity go unrecognised, bought Larry's chair and put it in the Smithsonian.
Now I'd be the first to admit that if I ever found myself in Larry's predicament I would be so terrfied that I would, quite literally, crap myself to death. A shower of solid and liquid fertiliser would fall from the sky until my body ran out of fluids, leaving my dessicated corpse to float around in the jetstream until gathered up by some enterprising saucer-men on a specimen collecting expedition. And I bet they'd come away with some surprising conclusions about humanity.
Of course, not everyone has my totally rational and reasoned concern about heights. Some rash, foolhardy idiots don't find the prospect of the sixth rung on a ladder a business suitable only for Star Trek extras in red shirts, No. In fact, if you know anything about human nature you won't be in the least bit surprised to learn that as soon as someone discovers an outrageously stupid and dangerous to the point of lethality pastime, other people will turn it into a sport- and so Clusterballooning was born.
At first, Clusterballooning was the province of enthusiatic but unprepared amatuers - Brazilian Adelir Antonio de Carli attached 1,000 helium filled party ballons to himself on his second flight and was never seen alive again, although most of him was fished out of the Gulf of Mexico several weeks later - but these days it's rather more professionally organised, including a flight over the Channel and a replication of the Flying House from "up".
Of course, the reaction of any sane mind is "Pft, yo'd never get me up there", but it struck me as I read about this stuff that clusterballooning would be a great way of solving that thorny old problem which I'm sure occupies as much of your time as mine - how to you get rid of a corpse? The tried and tested woodchipper is a bit old hat these days, and burial or burning? Booor-ing.But the prevailing winds in the UK are towards the North Sea and continentand not only would you get rid of that body which is inconveniently cluttering up your cellar but also you have the fun of inflating lots of balloons and speaking and a squeaky helium-voice whilst you do so.
I can't help but think that the discovery of a body crashed to earth with dozens of balloons attached would make a great opening for an episode of something like Wallander.
He had reasoned that he would spend the afternoon floating around about thirty feet in the air. Maybe he he'd shout amiable insults at his surprised and impressed neighbours from up there until, tired of bobbing about he'd pop a few ballons with the pellet gun he'd got with him and drift safely back down to earth.
You won't be surprised to learn that it didn't work out like that.
The balloons carried Larry to over 15,000 feet where he spent several hours drifting into the flightpath of LAX airport, too terrified to move or shoot any of the balloons in case his impromptu dirigible tipped up and launched him into a swan dive with a great view but a one-way ticket. Eventually he realised that if he didn't do something he'd die anyway, so started shooting balloons to return him to earth.Incredibly, he controlled his descent so well that he survived and was promptly arrested.
Even more fortunately for him the police couldn't decide what to charge him with - attaching oto garden furniture isn't a crime in California - and his contraption wasn't covered by any civil aviation laws because nobody had thought of it when they wrote the legislation. Eventually they fined him $1,500 on general principles and sent him home with a flea in his ear. When asked why he'd done it, Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."
The American government, never ones to let suicidal stupidity go unrecognised, bought Larry's chair and put it in the Smithsonian.
Now I'd be the first to admit that if I ever found myself in Larry's predicament I would be so terrfied that I would, quite literally, crap myself to death. A shower of solid and liquid fertiliser would fall from the sky until my body ran out of fluids, leaving my dessicated corpse to float around in the jetstream until gathered up by some enterprising saucer-men on a specimen collecting expedition. And I bet they'd come away with some surprising conclusions about humanity.
Of course, not everyone has my totally rational and reasoned concern about heights. Some rash, foolhardy idiots don't find the prospect of the sixth rung on a ladder a business suitable only for Star Trek extras in red shirts, No. In fact, if you know anything about human nature you won't be in the least bit surprised to learn that as soon as someone discovers an outrageously stupid and dangerous to the point of lethality pastime, other people will turn it into a sport- and so Clusterballooning was born.
At first, Clusterballooning was the province of enthusiatic but unprepared amatuers - Brazilian Adelir Antonio de Carli attached 1,000 helium filled party ballons to himself on his second flight and was never seen alive again, although most of him was fished out of the Gulf of Mexico several weeks later - but these days it's rather more professionally organised, including a flight over the Channel and a replication of the Flying House from "up".
Of course, the reaction of any sane mind is "Pft, yo'd never get me up there", but it struck me as I read about this stuff that clusterballooning would be a great way of solving that thorny old problem which I'm sure occupies as much of your time as mine - how to you get rid of a corpse? The tried and tested woodchipper is a bit old hat these days, and burial or burning? Booor-ing.But the prevailing winds in the UK are towards the North Sea and continentand not only would you get rid of that body which is inconveniently cluttering up your cellar but also you have the fun of inflating lots of balloons and speaking and a squeaky helium-voice whilst you do so.
I can't help but think that the discovery of a body crashed to earth with dozens of balloons attached would make a great opening for an episode of something like Wallander.
