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The Impossible Dream

Volunteers gather to help fill 150 balloons with helium in the hopes of letting one man fulfill his childhood dream.

Very popular in childhood cartoons, flying with party balloons never really seemed possible in real life. But there are certain people who don't let the belief that something is impossible stop them from doing it, anyway.

Kent Couch, a gas-station owner from Bend, Oregon fulfilled his childhood dream of lifting up into the sky, lifted by nothing more than party balloons.

So, one day in September 2006, he tied a bunch of helium filled balloons to a garden chair and away he flew. His goal was to fly from Bend, Oregon to Idaho, a distance of around 235 miles. He didn't make it. The flight was cut short and he had to bail out with his parachute to land safely on the ground below. While this unsuccessful landing may have discouraged others, it sent Kent back to the drawing board.

In July, 2007, he tried again and this time, he managed to cover 193 miles, but then ran dangerously low on helium and had to land before reaching Idaho. So, it was back to the drawing board, again.

With new modifications, he tried again in July, 2008. That is the flight you see in the pictures, here. This time, he not only managed to reach Idaho, but even stayed aloft long enough to reach almost all the way across the state. The 235 mile trip took about nine hours.

The modified Kent Flying Machine

The modifications consisted of making a PVC pipe frame surrounding the lawn chair, to hold three tanks of cherry flavored Kool Aid. The Kool Aid was not for drinking, although it was there, if he wanted to drink it. It was for ballast - to counteract the lift of the balloons and keep them from lifting him too high.

But it would also keep him from sinking too low. If he began to lose helium and sink too low, he could release some of the drink to the countryside below him and lose weight so the balloons would again make him rise.

Of course, the extra weight of the control ballast required him to have more balloons to lift it. Even then, he only had vertical control. For his directional control - well, he was at the mercy of which ever direction the wind wanted to blow him. Nothing is simple, anymore.

Other than those modifications, he still took along his original flight and travel equipment - a BB gun to shoot out a balloon or two when he wanted to land, and a book to read on the flight.

Not a "lift-off", but a "push-off"

The ballast had kept the contraption on the ground, so in order to take off, Kent had to release just enough of the Kool Aid to become barely boyant. Then, the volunteers pushed him up into the air in order to be certain that he didn't run into any power lines as he lifted away from the earth.

Leaving Bend, Oregon. ETA in Idaho, +9 hours.

He created a sensation in the tiny farming community of Cambridge, Idaho, where he touched down safely in a pasture and was soon greeted by dozens of people who gave him drinks of water.

Local Cambridge plumber Mark Hetz said, "My wife works at the City Market. She called and said, 'The balloon guy in the lawn chair just flew by the market, and if you look the door you can see him.'

"We go outside to look, and lo and behold, there he is. He's flying by probably 100 to 200 feet off the ground.

"He takes his BB gun and shoots some balloons to lower himself to the ground. When he hit the ground he released all the little tiny balloons. People were racing down the road with cameras. They were all talking and laughing."

Sandi Barton, 58, who has lived her whole life in Cambridge,a town of about 300, said she and her brother-in-law were the first ones to reach Couch and shook his hand.

"Not much happens in Cambridge," she said, adding that about half the town turned out.

Couch had covered about 235 miles in about nine hours after lifting off at dawn from his Bend, Oregon gas station, riding in a green lawn chair rigged with an array of more than 150 giant party balloons, three tanks of cherry Kool Aid, a BB gun and a book, fulfilling a life-long, not-so-impossible-after-all dream.

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To learn more about , take a look at the following web sites:

Kent Couch's web site
Seattle Times
Wikipedia