UPDATE 1-American, Iraqi 'lawn chair' balloonists lift off

[Cebu_4_2]

UPDATE 1-American, Iraqi 'lawn chair' balloonists lift off





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American, Iraqi "lawn chair" balloonists lift off (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/14/us-usa-balloonist-idUSBRE86D06E20120714)3:41pm EDT





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Cyclical Consumer Goods » (http://www.reuters.com/sectors/cyclicals)








Sat Jul 14, 2012 3:22pm EDT

(Updates with balloon launched)
By Dan Cook
(Reuters) - Two men sitting in lawn chairs tied to a cluster of 350 helium-filled balloons lifted into the Oregon sky on Saturday in a bid to break the Guinness World Record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight.
A crowd estimated at more than 1,000 people watched as Kent Couch and his flying companion Fareed Lafta, of Iraq, lifted off from the parking lot of Couch's Stop & Go Mini Mart in Bend, Oregon at 10:21 a.m. local time Saturday.
They soared into clear skies with light winds. Half an hour later they were a tiny red, white and blue speck in the skies northeast of Bend, drifting toward Idaho. The pair are equipped with parachutes in case of emergency.
"It's a preflight for our trip to Iraq to bring more awareness to the orphans," Couch said before the flight. He said Lafta contacted him a year ago and asked to join him on a cluster balloon flight to raise funds for children orphaned by the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Couch, who hopes to make it to Montana on this flight, invited Lafta to pick out a comfortable lawn chair and join him.
"A lot of people have contacted me over the years about flying, but Fareed was by far the most sincere," Couch said. "I went to the orphanages with him and saw the children there. And Fareed also has lots of sky-diving experience. Now I'll have someone to share my inflight experiences with."
Previous flights have taken Couch as far as 235 miles (378 kilometres) in 2008. He hopes to go 500 miles (805 km) on Saturday and register the feat with Guinness as a world record.
To Couch, the real appeal of cluster balloon flight is the sensation of being in the open air at 15,000 feet (4.6 km).
"There is perfect peace up there," he said. "Even though the breeze is carrying you, you feel no wind at all."
Does he ever contemplate meaning-of-life issues as the balloon rises above the earth?
"I am a God-fearing man, a believer in Jesus Christ," he said. "But I don't consider cluster balloon flight death-defying. When people say that it kind of just eggs me on."
"Balloon flight is really quite simple. You have 1,400 pounds (635 kilograms) of lift in the balloons, and 1,350 pounds (612 kg) of weight and ballast. What goes up must come down." (Editing By Cynthia Johnston, Greg McCune and Vicki Allen)

[Serpo]

http://www.collegeslackers.com/daily_images/371.jpg

[BrewTech]

That is the absolute SHIT!

Who wouldn't want to do that??

ETA: Is he drinking wine??

Pffff... I'd be drinking Russian River. Or maybe Lost Abbey.

[Cebu_4_2]

Not sure about them names but Vodka would be top of my list. Except I would not do that because I would be a John Denver protege and forget which tank actually held the reserve fuel and let air out of balloons to fill my glass.

[Glass]

Weather stops tandem chair balloon flight

A petrol station owner and an Iraqi adventurer trying to fly from Oregon to Montana in a lawn chair balloon rig have been forced to abort their flight due to storms.
About six hours into their flight, Kent Couch and Fareed Lafta started to descend from an altitude of 3048m because of the weather, flight organiser Mark Knowles told The Associated Press.
The website tracker showed them about five 8km south of the town of Prineville, about 48km northeast of their starting point. The pair initially floated about 64km north before winds sent them back south, then east, the direction they wanted to go.
"Thunderstorms are around them," Knowles said. "We've got visual contact. I can't see their faces."
About 90 volunteers and several hundred onlookers counted down and then cheered as the pair lifted off on Saturday from Couch's petrol station. The duo safely cleared a two-storey motel, a coffee stand and a light post.
"The interesting thing is, anybody can do this," Couch, the veteran of several lawn chair balloon flights, said before the flight. "They don't have to sit on the couch thinking, 'I should have done it.' They can do it."
Lafta, a mountain climber and sky diver, said he had shared Couch's childhood dream of floating like a cloud. He sent Couch an email two winters ago after reading accounts of Couch's earlier flights.
"I want to inspire Iraqis and say we need to defeat terrorists," Lafta said. "We don't need just an Army. We need ideology and to just have fun."
Volunteers filled 350 1.5m diameter red, white, blue and black balloons with helium and tied them to Couch's homemade tandem lawn chair rig. The balloons were arranged in bunches to represent the colours of the US and Iraqi flags. An American flag flew from the bottom of the framework supporting the chairs.
The rig included 360kg of ballast - red Kool-Aid in 150-litre barrels. Besides a GPS, navigation gear, satellite phone, oxygen, two-way radios, eight cameras, and parachutes, they were carrying two Red Ryder BB rifles and a pair of blowguns to shoot out enough balloons to come to earth when the time is right.
"The landings are very tough," Couch said. "I don't think about the landings until I have to land. That's how I do it."
The two men had hoped to fly through the night across the mountains of Idaho and touch down on Sunday morning somewhere in southwestern Montana.


Story Link (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/14236191/weather-stops-tandem-chair-balloon-flight/)

[midnight rambler]

Volunteers filled 350 1.5m diameter red, white, blue and black balloons with helium and tied them to Couch's homemade tandem lawn chair rig. (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/14236191/weather-stops-tandem-chair-balloon-flight/)

In photo in the op I'm only seeing 22 balloons, and those are >1 meter in diameter.

[Serpo]

In photo in the op I'm only seeing 22 balloons, and those are >1 meter in diameter.
Only an example photo