Toy balloons take pilot to 11,000ft record

Electronic Telegraph ^ | October 29 2001 | Nicola Woolcock

[aculeus]

A PILOT who attached himself to 600 helium-filled toy balloons floated 11,000ft into the air yesterday, breaking his own world record.

Top of the pops: Ian Ashpole soared to a height of 11,000ft Ian Ashpole, 46, cut himself free with a knife after reaching the required height and parachuted back to earth. He set the previous record of 10,000ft five years ago, and eventually hopes to reach a height of 15,000ft.

Mr Ashpole, from Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, has also set records for bungee jumping, abseiling and tightrope walking between balloons.

He said: "It's a childhood dream. I saw a film called The Red Balloon, in which a boy floats off on balloons, when I was a child and ever since I've wanted to do it.

"The one worrying moment came when I released myself from the support balloon and began to spin quite dramatically. I thought for a while I might have a problem.

"It got to a point where a lot of balloons were starting to burst, it was like machine guns, and I cut myself free without any problem."

Supporters had spent 10 hours filling the 4ft balloons with helium for Mr Ashpole's flight, at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.

He kept his knife tied around his neck and had a spare knife in a pocket. "The one thing you don't want to do is drop the knife. I gripped it for dear life," he said.

Mr Ashpole's record was verified by observers in a balloon and a helicopter. He landed about 10 miles from where he took off.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Cool.

[DouglasKC]

Supporters had spent 10 hours filling the 4ft balloons with helium for Mr Ashpole's flight, at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.

Four foot toy balloons?? Wow...where do I get some of those???

[BearCub]

This is cool: Cluster Ballooning

[abner]

Wow...where do I get some of those???

Try a scientific supply company. They usually carry them. At least until my other half buys them all. LOL

[Ward Smythe]

You know, all this did for Curious George was get him in trouble.

[eureka!]

Neat

[lds23]

Didn't Curious George do this once?

[Rebelbase]

Did'nt some guy use a lawn chair and ballons a few years back to fly around somewhere in the southwest? I think he used a BB gun to shoot out ballons to control his descent.

[cuz_it_aint_their_money]

Mr Ashpole, from Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, has also set records for bungee jumping, abseiling and tightrope walking between balloons.

Sounds like the man has a death wish to me. He's just not right!

[abner]

Did'nt some guy use a lawn chair and ballons a few years back to fly around somewhere in the southwest? I think he used a BB gun to shoot out ballons to control his descent.

I can't remember his name but I do know he died a year or two ago. He had a 'normal' death, not related to goofy lawnchair incidents. At least the incident was goofy according to the FAA.

[tacticalogic]

Did'nt some guy use a lawn chair and ballons a few years back to fly around somewhere in the southwest? I think he used a BB gun to shoot out ballons to control his descent.

I remember reading about that. If memory serves (don't laught, it could happen), he ended up in deep doo-doo with the FAA because he drifted into a commercial air corridor.

[Calvin Locke]

He had a 'normal' death

Suicide is 'normal'?

[Rebelbase]

" he drifted into a commercial air corridor. "

Yep, that was the guy. A jetliner pilot reported seeing him. (thats not something you see everyday)

[abner]

Suicide is 'normal'?

In the everything is relative department, compared to falling to earth in a lawnchair it is.

Actually, I didn't remember how he died, I just knew it wasn't aviation related.

[general_re]

Hey, I remember that one too! Here's the scoop from the Darwin Awards website. Notice that good old Yankee ingenuity and foolhardiness can alway bring you to greater altitudes than some English wanker with a parachute and a fancy plan:

Lawn Chair Larry
1982 Honorable Mention
Confirmed True by Darwin

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend.

Larry's plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.

When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He didn't level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.

At that height he felt he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.

Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed."

DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2001
Submitted by: Ed Greany, Douglas Walker, Walter Hecht
Reference: UPI, Stabbed with a Wedge of Cheese by Charles Downey

Footnote:
Larry's efforts won him a $1,500 FAA fine, a prize from the Bonehead Club of Dallas, the altitude record for gas-filled clustered balloons, and a Darwin Awards Honorable Mention. He gave his aluminum lawnchair to admiring neighborhood children, abandoned his truck-driving job, and went on the lecture circuit. He enjoyed intermittent demand as a motivational speaker, but said he never made much money from his innovative flight. He never married and had no children. Larry hiked into the forest and shot himself in the heart on October 6, 1993. He died at the age of 44.

Article
3 July 1982
UPI Followup
18 December 1982
Excerpt from Robert Fulghum's Book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Larry's Obituary
Los Angeles Times <

[theartfuldodger]

Here's some links to lawn chair Larry:

here,

and here.

[CJ Wolf]

we need personal zeppleins (sp?) to get to work.

[DKM]

The Lawnchair Flyer Award Honorary mention Darwin Award candidate.