What's Chinese for? Oh crap, it's one more thing. I'm strong and getty. One more thing. Whatever it is, I'm sure this paragliders said it as he almost equaled the world record for how high you go in the sky paragliding or without oxygen or not motorized plane or whatever. Anyway, he was a paraglider who almost equaled the world record at twenty eight thousand feet. Jeez, holy cow. Really yeah,
that's really really high. By accident, he was inspecting his gear on the ground when an updraft took him on an uncontrollable ascent five miles into the clouds.
That's astonishing.
Uh yeah, he could. Well, I'll just read it as it says it here. He was conducting a routine test of his paragliding equipment there in China when the draft hit him on the ground. I had just bought a second hand paragliding harness and wanted to test it, so I was conducting ground parachute practices. The wind suddenly picked up and lifted me into the air. I tried to
land as soon as possible, but I failed. Explaining that he got carried even higher by a wind from a cloud system that just happened to come through, and he ended up more than five miles above the ground, which is where commercial airlines fly.
Given the reality of life on Earth or probably any other planet, which is that things fall downward like five zillion to one, this guy was the one. He got lifted upward and was thinking. Ah.
He said. The scariest moment was when his parachute plunged headfirst toward the Earth. That was the scariest moment. Is said, that would be a very scary moment. Yes, but he managed to write himself before emerging from the cloud system, getting his bearings and then landed the thing. I have a feeling you know where this is leading, as we have talked about this many times throughout our radio career.
But I couldn't help but revisit lawn Chair Larry, one of our favorite stories are one of the most famous things that's ever happened. There have been movies made about it. He was on David Letterman.
He's the guy that in Night Way, I did that I'd be poopy pants.
Paul soiled himself. Sam Larry Walters in nineteen eighty two attached forty two helium balloons to a regular lawn chair. He went to an army surplus store and bought a bunch of big thick balloons, filled them with helium, attached him to the lawn chair he purchased at Sears and similar to this paraglider guy in China, not intending to at that moment take off, the strap broke and he went up into the sky very very quickly, like within moments. He was at sixteen thousand.
Feet, which is going to pass out just thinking, which.
Is three miles up. He was planning to go up into the air, obviously, he didn't think he would go that high. He strapped himself into the chair in the backyard of his home in San Pedro, California. He took a pellet gun, a Cbee radio, sandwiches, two liters of Coca Cola, a six pack of beer, and a camera. Wow, he wasn't sure.
I don't know if I'm in the mood to drink tonight. I'll bring some beer, but some soft drinks too, something.
To wash down my sandwiches. His plan was to just go kind of high and get some pictures of the neighborhood, and that's sort of thing.
But sandos and a variety of beverages.
That's weird. When the cord that tied his lawn chair to his jeep broke prematurely, his lawn chair shot straight up almost immediately. He was at sixteen thousand feet three miles in the air. He was spotted by two commercial airliners. He slowly drifted over a long beach. The entire flight lasted about forty five minutes before he started to oh, this is how it happened. After forty five minutes in
the sky, he came up with the idea. He had his pellet gun with him, so he shot several balloons with the pellet gun, taking care not to unbalance the load so he would tip out point. But then he asked. But then he accidentally dropped his pellet gun over the side. No dang its seat of a gun that was working so good. Despite taking a camera, he did not take any photos. He was probably distracted by the impending doom.
He just tell you what, Honestly, I got a fear of falling or heights or whatever it is to be able to unclamp my arms from the chair from the arms of the I'm sorry, unclamp my hands from the arms of the chair to even grasp the gun to shoot out, I mean, cause you probably had to cock it so we had to take both hands off. That's an amazing act to me right there. Yeah, I don't have a sphere of heights. It would be damn scary, obviously, But I wonder forty five minutes that's a long time.
You might acclimate after a certain amount of time, like okay, here we are, what am I gonna do? Yeah, tentatively take one hand off, then the other, and you're like, well, I'm just floating here, so right, Yeah.
Before I get back to the story. The scariest thing like in that line that I ever did. Do you remember how high I climbed on that ladder on the fire truck. Remember they put that ladder straight up in the air, not up against anything. If it had been up against a building or something, it had been one thing. But it was just up in the air, and I climbed to the top of it. It was really really high.
That was pretty that one was. It was like hard to make my hands move from rung to rung when I got a pie.
Yeah, I'd have rather been shot if they'd forced me at gunpoint. How to said, shoot me.
So back to lawn chair, Larry and his sears lawn chair three miles in the air, so he drops his pellet gun despite having Kiken. Okay, he descended slowly until the balloons got caught up in some power lines. The power line broke, causing a twenty minute electricity blackout in the town there still in California, and then he landed unharmed,
which is just miraculous. I mean, between the you're in a lawn chair with helium balloons, just plummeting to your death, then getting caught up in the electric lines, which obviously all kinds of bad things could have happened, right, he ends up tumbling a few feet and being fine.
You'd think I outran a lion, and now essentially I'm going to well, it's just no, no, you overcame all the odds and then there you are twenty five feet in the air and you're gonna die. That No, that's too much irony.
The aftermath is kind of interesting also. Walters was immediately arrested by waiting members of the Long Beach Police Department, which is where he landed. We know one person was quoted at the time of saying we know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act. As soon as we decide which part it is, some type of charge will be filed. If he had a pilot's license, we'd suspend that, but he doesn't. He was initially fined a
lawn chair pilot stylus. He was initially fined four thousand dollars for violations under the FAA operating aircraft within an airport area or something like that. He appealed and the fine was reduced to fifteen hundred dollars charge of operating a civil aircraft which there's not currently an effect. An airworthiness certificate was dropped. Yeah, there's no sea here. Here's
sixty day guarantee. Certainly, I wonder if he returned the launchair Just after landing, Walter spoke to the press saying 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. So he just had all his life he'd thought, I want to attach helium balloons to a lawn chair and see how I can go. If I hadn't done that,
I would regret it. The rest of my life ten days. Oh. He was awarded a special Darwin Awards Survival Award that year, which right, we used to do the Darwin Awards every year. We should bring that back. They're always good. Ten years after the flight, he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. He was briefly in demand as a motivational speaker and quit his job as a truck driver. Wow. What is he with? Motivational speaker? If you believe you could.
Tie the balloons of your aspirations to the lawn chair of your reality.
He never made much money in that line of work. Even though he quit his jump. He was briefly featured in a Time Exit Watch ad in the early nineties. The lawn chair used in the flight was reportedly giving to an admiring boy, but he regrets doing it because the Smithsonian wanted it. He gave away the lawn chair. Oh my god, that is funny. He ended up doing
volunteer work for the United States Force Service later in life. Oh, then he broke up with his girlfriend of fifteen years and he could only find sporadic security guard work.
Wow.
Oh, and then a very unhappy ending. Then I won't mention because it'll bring us down. At age forty four, he committed suicide.
Wow what a life. Yeah, wow that it did bring me down, but it uh, I'm glad you threw that in. It's uh, I think there's a lesson there.
Well, the kind of guy that comes up with the idea does it. When he's interviewed immediately upon landing, says, I always wanted to do it if I had not had gone crazy. It's just important to me. That's kind of odd.
Then you give that guy global fame, even you know, back in the day, and then the expectations he develops based on that very brief global fame, it's probably you know, there is definitely a lesson there.
Yeah, and then he probably thought for a while when he got the motivational speaker gig, that he was, you know, kind of maybe on a track for a little better life than he had before. Turned out, there's not much motivating about. I bought helium balloons at a surplus store and attached them to my sears lawn chair, and uh, I put too many on there. So I shot really eigh in the air and then miraculously, through luck, I floated to the ground the end. So too, and you
can too. I don't know what his final closing statement it was, but I.
Wonder what the nature of his speech was because they say motivational speakers, so we're obviously taking that literally. But you know, I've been to that sort of event, those chitfaquas or you know, just speaker marathons or whatever, and
some people are just there because there it's funny and amazing. Yeah, and you know, if you could help him write it, or write it for him with jokes and stuff like that, that would be you know, like the jelly and the peanut butter and jelly sandwich of your speaker's bureau or sure, yeah, yeah.
I get that. I'd be entertaining. But anyway, holy crap, you couldn't. You couldn't replicate that. I would think if you did it exactly the same way a thousand times, you'd get that one successful result.
I wonder, Oh my god. Yeah. Although I'll tell you what, for people like me with my phobia, this entire conversation, a lot of it was like somebody who's got a rack of I mean, like not I don't like spiders, but seeing one, you have an overwhelming animal fear wash over you. That you can't control. I'd like a ten minute conversation about being covered with spiders. Tough to take.
The one thing it doesn't mention I wish it did, since his girlfriend was there in the backyard when the cable broke and he shot immediately three miles straight up. But she probably couldn't even see him, right, I wonder what she was thinking at that point.
Well, she's just see the balloons for a while.
Yeah, I suppose, but three miles is of way up there. Uh, she had to be thinking. I don't know what she was thinking.
My boyfriend's about to be dead, that's what she was thinking. I didn't think that would happen, or something along those lines. What a dumb ass she was thinking.
I guess I need another boyfriend.
You know.
To his credit, at least he was legit. Remember balloon Boy. Yeah that was a hoax, So this guy actually actually did it.
So well, they were looking for that sort of fame, true fame whores. We'rese sort of people. Well there's murderers. Those are bad too.
Well, I guess that's it.