Lawnchair Larry flight
23
MENTIONS
11
EPISODES
10
PODCASTS
Search complete. 23 mentions across 11 episodes found for "Lawnchair Larry flight".
Sep 9, 2026
Freaky PHOST
Got here a little early this time.
Freaky PHOST
What up, Larry Walters? How you doing?
TonyGUEST
Hello, Larry.
Freaky PHOST
Shit.
James PietragalloHOST
I could see him in that uniform too.
James PietragalloHOST
So 87, San Diego Padres, 65 and 97, Larry Boa, the later Phillies manager is their manager.
James PietragalloHOST
Here, this team, Jesus, I'm looking at this, some guys you'd know.
James PietragalloHOST
Joey Corris, Storm Davis, Mark Davis, Dave Jervecki with the guy who snapped his arm in half when he tried to come back after having cancer.
James PietragalloHOST
All right, so is that? It can't be.
James PietragalloHOST
They're coaching staff.
James PietragalloHOST
is Larry Boa, Galen Sisko, Sandy Alomar Sr., Harry Dunlop, and Deacon Jones.
James PietragalloHOST
Could that be the defensive end, Deacon Jones? He's 53 years old.
Keith MalinakHOST
Okay, so this happened in 1982.
Keith MalinakHOST
So I'm going to take you back to July 2nd, 1982, where a 33-year-old truck driver named Larry Walters tied 42 helium balloons Remember this guy? I think it's one of my earliest memories.
Keith MalinakHOST
I vaguely remember this story.
Keith MalinakHOST
So he tied him to his Sears lawn chair, strapped on a parachute, packed the BB gun sandwiches in a six pack and cut the rope.
Keith MalinakHOST
Amen.
Keith MalinakHOST
A man can't just sit around.
Keith MalinakHOST
But here is Larry Walters in radio communications with his girlfriend, I believe it is.
Keith MalinakHOST
Suddenly a cable broke and
Kevin DietzHOST
All right, what's this week in history have for us?
Taylor VitanyGUEST
August 29th, 1987, a lawn chair pilot named Larry Walters tied 45 helium-filled weather balloons to a patio chair in Los Angeles and floated up 16,000 feet.
Taylor VitanyGUEST
He brought a pellet gun to pop balloons when he wanted to land, drifted into controlled airspace near an airport, and shocked commercial airline pilots before safely tangling in power lines and getting arrested.
Kevin DietzHOST
I feel like you might have been drinking, too.
AJ NorrisHOST
[laughs]
Felipe ShimonHOST
Well, so I told you about Larry Lawnchair, and then apparently-
AJ NorrisHOST
Yeah
Felipe ShimonHOST
... like, he was, like, charged with, like, misdemeanors and, like, he was, like, flying into, like, an, a federal, he, like, breaking the federal aviation laws and, like-
Kathy EmmonsHOST
A truck driver from California flew 16,000 feet into the sky in a lawn chair.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
Yes, Larry Walters was 33 years old from San Pedro, California, and he says that he dreamed of flying his whole life.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
So he bought 42 eight-foot helium weather balloons.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
And he tied them to his regular old Sears lawn chair, strapped on a parachute, packed a BB gun to pop balloons so that he could descend.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
So added a CB radio, sandwiches, and a six pack of beer.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
Now what he expected, Larry Walters, he expected to float a few hundred feet above his backyard, right? But that is not what happened.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
He cut the rope and he shot up like a rocket.
Kathy EmmonsHOST
Yeah.
RonPANELIST
Spectacle.
RonPANELIST
Then he tells lawn chair Larry again.
RonPANELIST
The yarn he stopped telling for years because it sounded so out of control it had to be bullshit.
RonPANELIST
Banana lounge.
7 MINS LATER
MurphyPANELIST
Says hello to old trees.
MurphyPANELIST
Lights a stump that burns from the inside.
MurphyPANELIST
Proves lawn chair Larry borrowed the sky.
MurphyPANELIST
Puts Walt in an eagle suit for five nil.
speaker_2PANELIST
A schoolyard in Perth where kids can walk past a metal animal that ate two oceans and a marriage and a decade of not knowing how to stop.
speaker_2PANELIST
Larry Walters sat a lawn chair into controlled airspace and lived to tell it wrong at parties.
speaker_2PANELIST
Ben Carlin sat a seep into history and died quiet in the same city that boarded him as a boy.
speaker_2PANELIST
Same family of human.
Nirvan MullickGUEST
Yeah, the second one even predates this one.
Nirvan MullickGUEST
So, um, the second one is about a man named Larry Walters, known as the 1982 Lawn Chair Balloon Pilot.
Scott CurranHOST
Lawn Chair Larry.
Nirvan MullickGUEST
Lawn Chair Larry, who on July 2nd, 1982, tied 42 helium-filled weather balloons to his Sears lawn chair in his girlfriend's backyard and flew up over 16,000 feet above Los Angeles.
MerlinHOST
There's completely so much to unpack with that one.
MerlinHOST
So that one will be coming up, Lawnchair Larry, and we have a bunch of other oddball ones.
MerlinHOST
I mean, I've got to find the website that I was digging into a while back that has like layers and layers about the blowing up a whale in Oregon.
MattHOST
Oh,
1 more episode mentions Lawnchair Larry flight.
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