Oregon's lawn-chair balloonist plans Iraq flight

By Associated Press Published: Nov 3, 2011 at 12:13 PM PDT Last Updated: Nov 3, 2011 at 12:43 PM PDT
Oregon's lawn-chair balloonist plans Iraq flight
FILE - In this July 7, 2007 file photo, cluster balloonist Kent Couch, sitting in a lawn chair, ascends past Mount Bachelor to his cruising altitude at the start of his attempt of a flight to Idaho, near Bend, Ore. Bend gas station owner Kent Couch who floated to Idaho in 2008 in a lawn chair is planning another cluster balloon adventure, in Baghdad. Couch told KTVZ he was invited by Iraqi daredevil Fareed Lafta who wants to lift off with him Nov. 15 at a Talent for Youth Conference in the Green Zone. Couch says he's working with U.S. and Iraqi military to make sure they'll be secure on what he hopes will be a flight of more than 400 miles at an elevation of 25,000 feet, using oxygen masks. (AP Photo/The Bulletin, Pete Erickson, File)

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Lawn-chair balloonist Kent Couch has boarded a plane for the start of a journey that he hopes will end in Iraq with a safe launch and landing beneath a huge cluster of party balloons.

Couch made headlines worldwide in 2008 when he flew a specially rigged lawn chair supported by more than 150 helium-filled party balloons from the parking lot of his Bend gas station to an Idaho field. The trip spanned 235 miles.

Couch says Iraqi daredevil Fareed Lafta invited him to Baghdad for a Nov. 15 flight at a youth conference in the Green Zone.

Couch said he plans to rig 300 balloons to lift the two of them sitting in a pair of lawn chairs for an overnight flight of 400 miles at 25,000 feet, which will require oxygen masks.

Spokesman Mark Knowles told The Associated Press that Couch and his wife, Susan, left early Thursday for Dubai.

Couch said his biggest fear is floating into neighboring Iran. If that happens, he says they will just go up and come right back down.

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