Larry Walters was a truck driver. But his lifelong dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force hoping to become a pilot, but his poor eyesight disqualified him. When he finally left the service, he had to simply be contented with watching others fly fighter jets over his backyard. One day, sitting in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.

Then one day Larry Walters got an idea. He went down to the local Army-Navy Surplus Store, and bought a tank of helium and forty-five weather balloons. These are not your brightly colored party balloons, these were heavy duty spheres that when fully inflated, measured more than four feet across.

Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair, which was just a typical aluminum…