Very popular in childhood cartoons, flying with party balloons never really seemed possible in real life.
Kent Couch, a petrol-station owner from Bend, Oregon fulfilled his childhood dream of lifting up to the sky with a little help from a hand-full of balloons. Fine, so they were like 150 party balloons tied to a garden chair, but the fact that he managed to fly for more than235 miles in about nine hours is quite the accomplishment.
His party-balloon flight won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records and helped him become a sort of local celebrity. Couch first tried to reach Idaho last year, but he only covered 193 miles before running dangerously low on helium and having to land his unusual flying machine, but this time he made the proper modifications and succeeded.
Kent Couch left Bend on July 5th carrying a BB-gun and a blowgun to pop balloons if he went to high-up and a few 15-gallon barrels of cherry-flavored Kool-Aid as ballast, to release if he got too low. That’s how he managed to land his balloon carried garden chair, he popped balloons until he touched the ground.
