Another armchair pilot story - you know attaching helium balloons to your chair to go out flying - has emerged. Man Flies 193 Miles in Lawn Chair | LiveScience I thought the old story was an urban myth. This one is on a reputable science site.

I calculate that if man and chair weigh about 80kg, then he needs about 60 m3 of helium to get lift, and that is before considering the weight of the balloons. He also took, according to the story, 20 gallons of water as ballast, that's another 70kg or so, and a parachute. So the total load is now 150kg, say, probably a bit more. Does "105 large helium balloons" really add up to all that. Add on another kg for each balloon, which would be quite light for a balloon strong enough to hold over 1 m3 of helium. Now we have 250kg, about 200m3 of helium, each ballon is a little over 2 m3. That would mean that the cloud of balloons above him occupies a cube roughly 6 m each side, that is the size of about 3 double-decker buses.

Baloney?

Not only reality, but ToSeeked.

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Not only that, but that thread includes some detailed analysis, and includes a picture of him in the air that would answer this OP.

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Well, and technically this man was "tooseeked" too in a way, as he's not the first real armchair pilot. The story about the guy in (San Fran area? Or was it San Diego? Or none of the above? Too lazy to look it up) that used weather balloons to accomplish his flight was quite real also. And so were the repercussions from the FAA for inproperly occupying restricted airspace (IIRC, he drifted over an airport).

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The first arm chair pilot committed suicide.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Up, Up, and Away!

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Snabald. Which is a shame. One of my heroes. The guy has Chutzpah. I want one of those bicycle-train human powered balloons from the late 1800's. A former student held the women's world record for human powered flight out of MIT for a while...great kid. pete

see Lois McCallin;MIT Daedalus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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There was a movie "Lawnchair Larry"--but that was set in the UK IIRC