Larry Walters told the San Pedro News Pilot that he got the idea for his July 2, 1982, flight after seeing some military weather balloons for sale in an Army-Navy surplus store when he was 13.
He no doubt wasn’t the first person to imagine tying balloons to a lawn chair and taking to the skies, but his all-too-successful attempt brought him temporary fame and even an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman.”
The 33-year-old North Hollywood man began his aerial escapade in the backyard of his girlfriend Carole Van Duesen’s house near Western Avenue and Seventh Street in San Pedro.
He’d experimented with the concept at her house a few months earlier, but winds had scattered the balloons before he could get airborne.
A wide-eyed Larry Walters describes his lawn chair balloon flight moments after landing in the backyard of a Long Beach house. San Pedro News Pilot, Jan. 5, 1983. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
Larry Walters readies for his flight in San Pedro on July 2, 1982. Photo by News Pilot staff photographer Randy Mudrick. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
Larry Walters takes flight on July 2, 1982. Photo by San Pedro News Pilot staff photographer Randy Mudrick. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
Larry Walters carries his lawn chair aircraft from his landing spot in Long Beach on July 2, 1982. Photo by San Pedro News Pilot staff photographer Randy Mudrick. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
In 2019, Walters’ lawn chair was installed at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)
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A wide-eyed Larry Walters describes his lawn chair balloon flight moments after landing in the backyard of a Long Beach house. San Pedro News Pilot, Jan. 5, 1983. (San Pedro News Pilot archives)
He tried again on July 2 — with different results. His original flight plan was modest. He would raise the 42 balloons 100 feet in the air, then ascend up to them on a tether line in his garden-variety lawn chair purchased at Sears before returning to earth.
He spent the previous night inflating the four groups of balloons with compressed helium gas from cylinders he’d purchased. Then he outfitted himself with an altimeter, parachute, walkie talkie, life jacket and a BB-gun pistol before settling in for what was meant to be a quick ride.
About 20 friends and neighbors had gathered to help with the project. As the balloons began to be released shortly before 11 a.m., the force of their ascent gave a small jerk to the tether line holding Walters’ chair, which broke loose with him in it.
His chair immediately began rising in the sky. He hit a mile in height quickly, and still continued upward. At first, winds carried him westward near Marineland in Rancho Palos Verdes, but as he ascended, the winds changed direction and he drifted eastward over the Vincent Thomas Bridge and Wilmington.
At 13,000 feet, he began drifting over Long Beach, toward the city’s local airport. No longer in control of his flight path or in contact with those on the ground, he radioed a mayday message to a citizens band channel.
When he reached 16,000 feet, his feet grew numb from the bitter cold. Fearing he might pass out, he began shooting out the balloons with the BB-gun in an attempt to reach land. His target was the open spaces of the Virginia Country Club in Long Beach. After puncturing a few balloons, he set the gun down on the chair to check the altimeter. The pistol slipped out of his reach and fluttered down toward the ground.
His friends below, meanwhile, had heard his mayday call, and alerted the control tower at Long Beach Airport. Controller Jerry Yokum quickly alerted both private and commercial aircraft to steer clear of the unique hazard.
Back in the sky, Walters began emptying jugs of water he carried for ballast in an attempt to slow his descent. It worked, but not well enough for him to reach the country club.
Instead, he was headed for a residential neighborhood. He missed one power line, and avoided electrocution when one of his insulated ropes entangled in a second power line, leaving him dangling five feet from the ground.
He found himself suspended in the Long Beach backyard of Robert Dunham, 432 E. 45th St., behind the Bixby Knolls Shopping Center, about 15 miles from where he’d started. He was unhurt.
Walters told the various authorities that he understood he had piloted an untested aircraft and disturbed air traffic in the area, and was willing to face the consequences. (One immediate consequence was the two-hour power outage that befell the neighborhood when he got snagged in the power lines.)
In the wake of the unusual flight, he became an instant celebrity, making the talk show rounds and entertaining offers of television and movie deals and commercial endorsements. A group of San Diego businessmen offered him a $100,000 deal to make a second flight in that city that he considered, but nothing came of it. He never piloted a lawn chair again.
In December 1982, the Federal Aviation Administration charged him with four violations of aviation regulations, levying a $1,000 fine for each. Walters vowed to fight the $4,000 penalty.He turned down the San Diego offer because they wanted him to make the flight before clearing himself with the FAA. In April 1983, he agreed to pay the FAA $1,500 in fines for the incident.
Years later, in November 1991, Walters was featured as part of a nationwide Timex watch ad campaign celebrating ordinary people who had overcome a personal obstacle or challenge. He was in somewhat dire financial straits at the time, with fees from public speaking one of his few sources of income.
The Larry Walters story unfortunately came to a sad end on Oct. 6, 1993, when he died by suicide. He was 44.
The action surprised his family, who could give no reason for it. He’d never married and had no children.
Though he did enjoy riding the publicity wave that resulted from his flight, he seemed uneasy with his resulting fame. As he told the News Pilot in 1991, “I didn’t do it because I thought it would get attention or make money. I did it because it was a lifelong dream.”
Sources: Daily Breeze archives. San Pedro News Pilot archives.