Going to be starting a new series where I am going to blog about a wild story and as my audience you will have to give me your opinion on whether or not the main character in the story is dumb or smart based on what he/she did. Now that the rules are set, let's get it started.
You know when you're a kid and you see helium balloons for the first time and realize that with enough balloons you can basically fly? Well there is a guy who really did this and got to live out his lifelong dream of being able to fly via balloons and nothing else. Let me tell you the tale of Larry Walters.
This story starts when Larry is a young boy at the age of 13 when he walked into an Army Surplus store and saw a weather balloon for the first time. A weather balloon for my low IQ people carries instruments to the stratosphere to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde. After exiting the Army Surplus store Larry knew what he wanted to be when he grew up, a pilot in the Air Force. Not a bad career choice for someone that just wants to fly planes. There was one issue though, Larry had terrible eyesight and he was unable to be a pilot in the US Air Force. He would be stuck as a truck driver for his career.
So Larry is now 33 years old, has a longterm girlfriend, a home, a career, but there is still one thing that he just has to do in his life that has been on his mind since he was a kid, flying using weather balloons. In July of 1982, Larry decides it is now or never, he wants to take flight. Here is the plan that Larry drew up in his brain over the last 20 years.
Larry bought 42 weather balloons from a Army Surplus store, helium tanks, and a lawn chair from Sears for $109. How a lawn chair from Sears was $109 in 1982 is beyond me. Larry started at the house that he was living at and wanted to float in the air at about 5,000-6,000 feet to the Mojave desert that was a little more than 55 miles away. To keep the chair stabilized he attached 30 gallons of water to the chair and brought along a BB gun to shoot down the balloons when he wanted to descend. Larry also brought along a CB radio to keep in touch with his girlfriend on the ground. Larry was not just going to fly and come down, he was going to have a damn good time doing it too as he brought sandwiches, 2 liters of coke, and a case of beer. Living like Larry am I right. Oh wait he had more stuff with him? Larry also had a parachute which is a smart idea as well as an altimeter so he knew how high he was off of the ground. A camera was also brought along so Larry could document this one of a kind experience. If you are wondering if Larry knew how crazy he was, he did. He brought a lifejacket with him even though he planned to go to the desert. Our boy Larry is locked and loaded, prepared for anything to come his way.
Larry was prepared for a lot of things, what he was not prepared for was when he was saying his final goodbyes to his girlfriend and best friend Ron, the ropes holding him to the ground snapped and Larry was off. He was lifted off with such force that his glasses fell off of his face, but when you think about something for 20 years, you come prepared with back up glasses. Larry got all the way up to 16,000 feet before he decided to come down. While shooting down 7 of the balloons, Larry dropped his BB gun. He would have been screwed but, 35 weather balloons were the perfect amount to make a slow descend.
Did Larry make it to the Mojave desert? No, he went the complete opposite direction towards the Long Beach Airport. The CB radio came in handy as Larry was in contact with REACT which is basically 9-1-1 for CB radios. He told them the situation and the police were waiting for him to come down. Larry landed safely on the ground in Long Beach and right into the handcuffs of a police officer. Before he was arrested he gave his legendary chair to a neighborhood kid without a second thought. The Police had no clue what to charge Larry Walters with. He ended up with a $4,000 fine for operating an aircraft within an airport traffic area "without establishing and maintaining two-way communications with the control tower." This was later reduced to $1,500 after Larry appealed it.
Right after Larry was out from police custody, he said this to the press.
"It was something I had to do. I had this dream for twenty years, and if I hadn't done it, I think I would have ended up in the funny farm."
Talk about a man accomplishing his dreams. In total Larry was in the sky for about 3 hours. He did not use his camera at all as he said the views were just so breathtaking. Larry would go on Late Night with David Letterman a few days after his journey and immediately was demanded as a motivational speaker. He quit his job and spoke for a little bit, but it fizzled out quickly and Larry never made a fortune off his fame. Larry would do volunteer work for the US Forest Service after his 15 minutes of fame was over. He would also break up with his longterm girlfriend who helped him immensely in his dream of flying with weather balloons. At the age of 44, just over a decade after he lived out his life long dream, Larry Walters took his own life in the San Gabriel Mountains, where he volunteered.
To lighten the spirits back up, what are you supposed to do after doing what may possibly be the coolest thing ever? Larry Walters did what every boy thinks of when they see helium balloons. Simply put, he was the man who answered a lot of questions that people thought and said, but never did. Larry's chair that was given to a random kid has been recovered and is in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
This brings us to the question. Was Larry smart or dumb? I am going to go with smart. Larry plotted this for 20 years and his only major hiccups were that he went the wrong way, and he went too high. I bet if he did it again he would do it perfectly. He was so smart even the police did not know what to do with him.
Like and share with a buddy who you would like to send to space with helium balloons.
That is the Tea, with T
Comments