Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters ? who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. :142smilie
Picture from "The Bulletin" (Bend, OR), by Pete Erickson
Kent Couch flew his lawn chair, with 105 helium-filled baloons attached to it, 193 miles towards Idaho: