Kent Couch floated 380 kilometers in a chair borne by helium-filled balloons.

By THOMAS VINCIGUERRA

A lack of wings didn’t stop Kent Couch. On July 5 Mr. Couch, a 48-yearold gas station owner, escaped gravity in a device of his own making: a lawn chair attached to more than 150 helium-filled balloons. Taking off from Bend, Oregon, Mr. Couch drifted 380 kilometers to Cambridge, Idaho, in about nine hours.
It was his third “cluster balloon” excursion since 2006. “Once you’re up, it’s really pleasant,” he said. “It’s so serene. That’s a word I never used before this.”
Serene might be one description of the experience. Idiotic might be another. But there does seem to be an undeniable whimsy to the idea of floating in a comfortable chair buoyed by a panoply of shiny balloons.
“There are two distinct camps,” said Andrew Baird, president of the Balloon Federation of America. “Some are experienced balloonists who know what they’re doing. And there are those who know little or nothing. Those are the kind of people who are going to get in trouble.”
He estimates that there are perhaps 10 such flights a year, though no one knows for sure. No license is required. Nor is a flight plan.
Jean Piccard, the aeronautical pioneer, may have been the first to use multiple balloons to fly. In 1937, he ascended to 3,350 meters over Minnesota and Iowa in a small gondola attached to 95 1.2-meter-tall balloons. He landed safely, reportedly by popping balloons with a knife and revolver to control his descent.
The patron saint of the everyman school of cluster ballooning is undoubtedly Lawrence Walters, also known as Lawn Chair Larry. In 1982, he tied 42 weather balloons to a lawn chair in San Pedro, California, christened the craft “Inspiration I” and shot up to more than 4,800 meters.
Adrift and out of control, he startled at least two airline pilots. Upon descending Mr. Walters snared a power line, and was fined $1,500 by the Federal Aviation Administration.
He was lucky. On April 20, a Brazilian priest named Adelir Antonio de Carli took off from Paranagua, buoyed by 1,000 balloons. He was reported missing eight hours later. The day before Mr. Couch’s flight, rescuers recovered a body from the ocean that they said may be Father de Carli’s.
Les Dorr, an F.A.A. spokesman, said that the phenomenon is probably “too small” to warrant guidelines.
Although Mr. Couch is largely selftaught, cluster balloonists like Jonathan Trappe, who went aloft for four hours on June 7 with 55 huge helium balloons, prefers to take no chances.
A 35-year-old technical projects manager in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mr. Trappe carried a clutch of safety equipment and alerted regional air traffic controllers ahead of time.
“Cluster ballooning is something people can do,” Mr. Trappe said. “They just need to do it safely. I’m very concerned that people will do it without the appropriate training.”
Not that he didn’t inject some whimsy into his trip. Mr. Trappe’s gondola was actually his office chair. “It represents a contrast between the normal mundane world,” he said, “and the world of my dreams.”