A helium activist known as the Calgary Balloon Man has gained international fame for floating in a balloon chair over the Canadian city.
Daniel Boria, 26, founder of helium enthusiasts All Clean Natural, decided that the best way to promote his company would be via a major publicity stunt. He wanted to do something big, in order to draw attention away from major helium conglomerates–and so, with a skydiving idea in mind, he traveled to the United States eight months ago, in order to acquire a skydiving license.
As Boria told the Toronto Star, he learned “just enough” to get licensed. But that was only the first problem he encountered. As it turned out, no pilot was willing to fly Boria to the necessary height without Boria first getting a permit to jump over the Calgary Stampede, the city’s huge annual rodeo festival. A permit meant ruining the element of surprise, but, in Boria’s words,
We couldn’t find anyone who could get me to that altitude. No pilots were willing to lose their license to fly me into controlled airspace. We went as far (as) to consider bringing a Mexican into the country as a temporary worker to fly the plane. That’s when we turned to helium.
One $20 chair, $12,000 worth of helium, and a single calculator-and-pencil-concocted plan later, Boria had become the Calgary Balloon Man, and was in flight. The CBM reflected on his flight in an interview with the Calgary Herald:
I was going almost 1,000 feet a minute. It was crazy. I was looking up at the balloons and a few were popping as I rose…when one of those big balloons pop it sounds like a gun going off. I was looking up at the balloons popping and looking down at my feet dangling…through the clouds and below me I could see 747s landing.
All told, the Calgary Balloon Man was in the air for “about 20 to 30 minutes.” He said the whole experience “was insane…You’re just by yourself up above the clouds. It was the weirdest, most relaxing and frightening moment at the same time. It was incredibly peaceful up there.”
Man forced to jump from balloon chair after climbing higher than a plane http://t.co/3FLAEa6OUg pic.twitter.com/SNhQApETV9
— Metro (@MetroUK) July 7, 2015
Canadian Man Arrested After Flying Lawn Chair With Helium Balloons, Police Say http://t.co/ccBTbogoC5 via @ABC — Travis Fedschun (@travfed) July 6, 2015
Canadian man arrested after attaching 150 balloons to a chair and floating into the skies http://t.co/SoANanrPQ4 pic.twitter.com/G6znITXVpD
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 7, 2015
UP, UP AND ARRESTED: Canadian man busted for balloon chair stunt. ‘READ’ more: http://t.co/kHrwLGENX3 pic.twitter.com/fkR22Y9hZs — KPRC 2 Houston (@KPRC2) July 7, 2015
Unfortunately for the Calgary Balloon Man, bad weather forced him to abandon ship before he could skydive directly into the Stampede. He landed in a field about two miles short, where police picked him up and arrested him on two charges: mischief causing danger to life, and mischief to property under $5,000. The second charge was later dropped.
Boria “may have” broken his ankle in the fall, but remained magnanimous, even optimistic, about the whole thing: “We did everything we could to make it as safe to the general public as possible,” he said. “I assessed the total risk to reward on my end as well. Almost anything you do in the world you’re going to get naysayers and people who don’t agree with what you’re doing, especially if it’s different.”
(Photo credits: Burning Man, Wallah via Flickr; screenshot via Pixar)
