LAWNCHAIR LARRY

Lawrence "Larry" Richard Walters nicknamed "Lawnchair Larry" or the "Lawn Chair Pilot", was an American truck driver  who took flight on July 2, 1982, in a homemade airship. The "flying machine" consisted of an ordinary lawn chair with 45 helium-filled weather balloons attached to it. Walters rose to an altitude of over 15,000 feet (4,600 m) and floated from his point of origin in San Pedro, California, into controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport. His flight was widely reported.
Walters had often dreamed of flying, but was unable to become a pilot in the United States Air Force because of his poor eyesight. He first thought of using weather balloons to fly at age 13 and 14, after seeing them hanging from the ceiling of a military store. Twenty years later, he decided to try it. His intention was to float over the Mojave Desert and then use a pellet gun to burst balloons to gracefully float to the ground.
After 45 minutes in the sky, he shot several balloons, and then accidentally dropped his pellet gun overboard. He descended slowly, until the balloons' dangling cables got caught in a power line, causing a 20-minute electricity blackout in a Long Beach neighborhood. After his flight, Walters was briefly in demand as a motivational speaker, and quit his job as a truck driver. He was featured in a Timex print ad in the early 1990s but never made much money from his fame.
The lawn chair used in the flight was reportedly given to an admiring boy named Jerry, though Walters regretted doing so when the Smithsonian Institution asked him to donate it to its museum.Twenty years later, Jerry sent an email to Mark Barry, a pilot who had documented Walters' story and dedicated a website to it, and identified himself. The chair was still sitting in his garage, attached to some of the original ropes and water jugs used as ballast.The chair was on loan to the San Diego Air and Space Museum, on exhibition through 2014.
Later in his life, Walters hiked the San Gabriel Mountains and did volunteer work for the United States Forest Service. He later broke up with his girlfriend of 15 years and could only find work as a security guard. On October 6, 1993, at the age of 44, Walters committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart in Angeles National Forest. He left no suicide note. His remains are interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. Walters had no children.