Oregon man prepares to pilot lawn chair over Baghdad

Source: LA Times

Some men see lawn chairs in the sky and ask, "Why?" Some, though, imagine attaching the chairs to hundreds of balloons, strapping themselves in the seat, donning oxygen masks and flying straight over Baghdad.

Kent Couch, who runs a gas station in Bend, Ore., is such a man. Couch boarded a flight to the Middle East on Thursday, setting out on an adventure that involves becoming the first lawn chair balloonist to traverse the now-more-or-less peaceful skies over Iraq -- and raise money for Iraqi children.

"Americans and Iraqi civilians working together to accomplish a goal, to do a dream," Couch told the Associated Pressbefore his rather traditional passenger jet liftoff from Medford, Ore.

Couch plans to join Iraqi extreme sport enthusiast Fareed Lafta, who has said he hopes (later) to become Iraq's first man in space. The two men are scheduled to lift off in tandem Nov. 15 from Baghdad's Green Zone on lawn chairs fitted with some 300 balloons and soar over Iraq at 25,000 feet for 24 hours -- enough to set a new world record in the arcane field of cluster ballooning.


Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/lawn-chair-balloon-baghdad-iraq.html

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What could possibly go wrong?

Not this again.

25000 feet for 24 hours?? -60 F and no oxygen?

"donning oxygen masks and flying straight over Baghdad".

--reading helps.

He survived his flight but committed suicide later. Guess it's not the same guy.

He's done this type of thing several times, at least floating from central Oregon to Idaho.

If he can raise money for his cause, more power to him.

I gassed up at his station several times.

+1

Oregon to Idaho, you can get arrested if the authorities don't like it. And, as always, accidents are possible, with him high in the sky

Iraq, a slow moving object held up by balloons, where if you come to ground in the wrong spot, the consequences could be far more drastic.

Edited to change the tense

He thought the balloons would only lift him so far. He armed himself with a pellet gun for altitude "control" but after he went up hundreds of feet in the first seconds, he was afraid to shoot any.

pallets of $100 dollar bills to Iraq.

during our lifetime, at least inexpensive large quantities needed for recreational balloons.

It's all for the children, dontcha see?

... equivalent of flagpole sitting?

-- Mal