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Updated Jul 16, 2012 - 12:49 pm
Men fly in balloon chair 10,000 feet over Oregon


Two men who took a short ride over Oregon in a pair of lawn chairs tied to 350 balloons say the sensation of floating near 10,000 feet is pretty fabulous.

"It's got to be as close to floating on a cloud as one could ever experience," says Kent Couch, who flew with friend Fareed Lafta in a 30 mile flight that was cut short for thunderstorms.

Couch and Lafta were about seven hours into their flight Saturday when they were forced to descend.

"I made it up and down safely, and that was a success," Couch tells 97.3 KIRO FM's Ross and Burbank Show.

After takeoff, the duo safely cleared a two-story motel, a coffee stand and a light post, then floated about 30 miles north.

Watch lawn chair balloon craft takeoff:

Winds pushed them south before sending them east, the direction they wanted to go. But thunderstorms in the region forced them to abort the flight.

"We ran into the worst turbulence ever on this trip," says Couch. "There was some kind of turbulence that was just putting the squeeze on the balloons. We lost a bunch of balloons within seconds."

The pair was outfitted with parachutes, in case they had to bail. Lafta, an avid skydiver with over 5,000 jumps, was apparently ready to abandon ship as things got bumpier, but Couch, an inexperienced jumper, asked his friend to hold tight a little bit longer.

The duo eventually came to a hard landing in the aircraft in central Oregon. The unmanned balloon chairs returned to flight after the pilots scrambled out. A flight website tracker showed the balloons continuing east across Oregon.

The pair was attempting to fly from Oregon to Montana, managing their flight by moderating lift versus weight on the craft.

"I think we ended up with 1540 lbs of lift and right at 1480 lbs of weight. We put ourselves on there, and then we put a bunch of water on there in jugs, that we drained slowly that we could use to pull us back up every time we drop down. All you do is let out water if you want to go up and pop balloons if you want to come down," says Couch. "That's how you steer."

Saturday's flight wasn't the first for Couch, who seems to be a pretty big fan of the unique ride.

"It's just like sitting out on your back porch. You hardly get any feelings of wind or anything, because you're moving with the wind...There's no noise. You're just sitting there," says Couch. "It's a fabulous feeling."

This won't be the last flight for the two friends. Couch and Lafta have plans to fly a balloon rig over Baghdad sometime in the future.

"It's a great opportunity to kind of bring the countries together," says Couch.

Lafta, who is from Iraq, hopes their planned flight will send a message.

"How to defeat the terrorists is sometimes by force maybe, but sometimes by ideology because then we are not stopping. We will not give up. We will survive."


http://mynorthwest.com/75/707147/Men-fly-in-balloon-chair-10000-feet-over-Oregon

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