On 2 July 1982, Larry Walters, a 33-year-old truck driver, sat down in an aluminium lawn chair in a backyard in San Pedro, California, cut the tether, and went straight up. He had tied 42 helium-filled weather balloons to the chair. He had planned a gentle float a few hundred feet above the ground. Instead he climbed to about 16,000 feet, three miles above Los Angeles, and into aviation folklore as “Lawnchair Larry”.

A 20-Year Dream

Walters had wanted to fly since childhood and had no pilot or balloon training. He told the Los Angeles Times he had had the dream for 20 years and that if he had not done it, he would have ended up in the funny farm. He bought the weather balloons, filled them with helium, and equipped his chair with a parachute, a life vest, a CB radio, an altimeter and a BB gun, which he planned to use to pop balloons and come down. Accounts of his supplies differ, but they included water jugs for ballast and snacks such as beef jerky and soda.

Straight Up

When the tether was cut, the chair shot upwards far faster than he had expected. He reached about 16,000 feet, where the air was cold and thin. He shot several balloons, reportedly seven, before the gun slipped from his lap when the chair tipped. Airline pilots reported a man in a lawn chair floating in their airspace, and Walters talked over his CB radio with people on the ground. He drifted towards Long Beach, inside the controlled airspace of Long Beach Airport.

Walters eventually came down over a residential neighbourhood in Long Beach, where the balloons draped over power lines and left him dangling. The power was cut to the area, for about 20 minutes according to the Los Angeles Times, so that he could be brought down safely. He was unhurt.

The FAA Case

The Federal Aviation Administration charged him with four violations, including flying without an airworthiness certificate, failing to maintain radio contact with the Long Beach tower and creating a collision hazard, with proposed penalties totalling $4,000. After a hearing, the FAA dropped the airworthiness charge, ruling, as UPI reported in April 1983, that the lawn chair was not required to have an aircraft certificate. Walters eventually paid a $1,500 fine.

He became a minor celebrity, appearing on talk shows and receiving a tongue-in-cheek prize from the Bonehead Club of Dallas. His altitude would have been a record for a cluster balloon flight, but it could not be officially recognised because he was unlicensed. Walters died in 1993, at the age of 44.

What the Popular Version Gets Wrong

Much of the viral version is right: the date, San Pedro, 42 weather balloons, a Sears lawn chair, about 16,000 feet, the BB gun, airline pilots reporting him, the power lines in Long Beach, the $4,000 proposed penalty and his line that a man can’t just sit around. Several details are not. He was aloft for roughly an hour and a half to two hours, not 45 minutes. The airspace he drifted into was Long Beach Airport’s, not the main approach to LAX. His fine was finally $1,500, not $4,000. Contemporary accounts list soda and beef jerky rather than a six-pack of beer. And there is no evidence from Pixar that he inspired the film Up; the resemblance is a popular assumption, not an established fact.

Sources: Los Angeles Times obituary (1993), reprinted by The Daily Mirror, Los Angeles; UPI, “FAA drops one charge against lawn chair pilot” (6 April 1983); HistoryNet, “Larry Walters: Lawnchair Larry”; Guinness World Records (2025).