Guy Pretends He's in Up, Flies Over Canada in Balloon Chair

Daniel Boria did get arrested, though
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 7, 2015 9:51 AM CDT

Daniel Boria has either seen too many Pixar movies or he's the most ingenious marketer the other side of Niagara Falls. The Canadian wanted to advertise his cleaning-products business in the most visible way possible: by affixing more than 100 helium balloons to a lawn chair and flying over Calgary, reports Reuters. The 26-year-old tells CNN he hatched his plan to soar over the Calgary Stampede rodeo more than two months ago, though he had originally wanted to contract a plane or copter. When told there was a no-fly zone over the event, he took matters into his own hands. He signed up for skydiving lessons, he tells CTV News, then "figured out how many [balloons] it would take to carry somebody, and [multiplied] that by three." That came out to more than 100 balloons, in addition to a $20 lawn chair he used as his pilot's seat, he tells the Calgary Sun; the whole shebang cost him just over $13,000.

Boria suited himself up with an oxygen tank and a parachute and launched Sunday evening, the paper notes, and he quickly soared to heights even he didn't anticipate. "I'd estimate I was going up about 500 to 1,000 feet in a minute," he says. "I was looking down on the city and watching 747s and planes approaching the local airport." Winds pushed him far from his planned landing spot (the middle of the chuckwagon races of the rodeo grounds); he landed about a mile away with a few cuts, per CNN, and a hurt ankle, per a cop who called Boria's stunt "irresponsible." "That chair has to come down, and there's the possibility it could land on a person, a vehicle, a house and cause damage," the officer says. "It would have been cheaper for him to rent a billboard." Boria was charged with one count of mischief, a City of Calgary press release notes. Police also say Boria could face additional "aeronautics" charges, per CTV. (More Canada stories.)

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