Oregon lawn-chair balloonist hopes to fly for more than 300 miles

Kent Couch is at it again. While the rest of the country is sleeping off Fourth of July revels on Saturday, he and a host of volunteers will be up before the sun at his gas station in Bend, Ore., to blow up 150 giant latex party balloons and tie them with clothesline to his lawn chair for his third try at flying to Idaho.

"The first time, nobody wanted to be involved at all," Couch said in a phone interview. "They were thinking I was a lunatic, I mean a balloon-atic. I couldn't get anybody on board to help me. My friends shunned me.

"But this time it's different. One guy is donating the oxygen tank from his airplane. That's $1,500. He said, 'Don't worry about it. It's insured."'

And his wife, Susan, has given her blessing.

Couch, 48, was inspired to go up, up, and away by a TV show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles by truck driver Larry Walters, who gained urban myth immortality and had a play written about him, but was fined $1,500 for violating air traffic rules.

"I said, 'You know what, there is nothing wrong with that. It makes common sense to me," Couch said.

Couch made his first ascent in 2006, staying up six hours before shooting out a few balloons with his pellet gun to descend. But he had to jump to earth in his parachute because he was coming down too fast. He never got that lawn chair back.

Last year, he flew 193 miles before running low on helium and landing in sagebrush near Union in northeast Oregon. The flights have gotten him on national TV, but that's not what drives him.

"There is this desire if you've ever had a cluster of balloons in your hand and just imagine yourself floating up in the air," Couch said. "You don't realize all the other technical things. That's just a carefree day. Or you're laying on your back in the backyard and see a cotton cloud float by. You say, 'Wow, wouldn't I like to go up there and ride that cloud.'

"When you're up there, there's not much stress," Couch said. "There's a little stress on the way down. A few navigational issues you've got to deal with. But there's nothing, really, I can do but enjoy it."

With corporate sponsorship this year, he is much better equipped and hopes to fly 300 miles or more, crossing the Wallowa Mountains in northeast Oregon and making it all the way to Idaho and beyond. He figures the whole rig cost about $6,000, mostly for helium and the lawn chair, plus the loan of various gadgets.

He is putting on more balloons — 150 three-foot-diameter latex party balloons.

They tie onto a framework attached to the steel-framed reclining lawn chair, so it hangs like a pendulum. Just tying balloons to the chair makes it hang crooked.

Instead of bags to hold his water ballast, he is using 15-gallon barrels, which he can drain to gain altitude.

Couch will have a finger clip to monitor the oxygen level in his blood, as well as a tank of oxygen to breathe if he goes too high. He'll also have a GPS tracking device attached to his chair, and another in his pocket, allowing his location to be tracked on his Web site.

He will take along extra duct tape and zip ties for emergency repairs, extra clothes and a blanket for when it gets cold at higher altitude

For food, he'll have water, beef jerky, some boiled eggs and chocolate.

"You don't want to eat much," he said. "There's no bathrooms up there on that chair."

He will wear a parachute, which makes it difficult to put on or take off clothing, but no seat belt. After the first flight he found it just wasn't necessary.

"If I get up around 15,000 feet, I'll pop a couple balloons," Couch said. "If I get too low I'll release some water. All the way you go it's like a seesaw, up and down, up and down. You can't feel yourself going up and down. You have to look at the altimeter."

If all goes well this year, he'd love to fly across the English Channel and even Australia.

"I don't mind them thinking I'm nuts," Couch said. "I've done my research and I feel plenty confident. I did 50 sky dives before this. Sky diving can be just as dangerous as this. Guys who sky dive thousands of times don't have a scratch on them."