6 | Up Up and Away
Guidelines
This idea was pioneered by the legendary Larry Walters whose
spontaneous misadventures inspired the Pixar classic UP. We do
not advise that anyone actually attempts this at home, but Larry’s
story is so spectacular that we felt obliged to include it in this
compendium. Larry was an American truck driver, who on July 2,
1982 took flight in a homemade airship named ‘Inspiration I’.
His beautiful ‘flying machine’ consisted of an ordinary patio chair
with 45 helium-filled weather balloons attached. It was reported
that Inspiration I rose to an altitude of over 15 thousand feet and
floated from its take-off spot in San Pedro, California into
controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport. Slightly
safer alterna ѥٕ́Ѽ