Real "Danny Deckchairs" Soar With Just a Seat and Some Balloons

Steven Lovgren
for National Geographic News

Updated August 27, 2004

John Ninomiya admits cluster ballooning is something of a fringe sport. "You could call it a personal eccentricity," the native Californian said. "I believe I'm the only person in America who does it."

Here's how it works: The pilot wears a harness to which a cluster of large, helium-filled balloons is attached. The giant bouquet of colorful balloons lifts the pilot into the sky, like a hot air balloon. Control is achieved by releasing ballast, such as containers of water, to ascend or bursting balloons to descend.

"It's a really wonderful experience," Ninomiya said. "It's completely silent—no burner sound the way there is in a hot-air balloon. It's just you and the balloons."

Hardly for the faint of heart, cluster ballooning is likely to remain a novelty for some time. But its popularity could get a boost from a new movie, Danny Deckchair, which opened in limited release this month.

In this Australian comedy, a truck driver tries to escape city life (and his scheming girlfriend) by tying a bunch of helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair. The stunt works. The man sails away into the sky before a thunderstorm sweeps him off into the outback.

Up and Away

The movie plot is reminiscent of a 1982 incident in which Larry Walters, a 33-year-old Californian with no ballooning experience, attached 45 helium balloons to a lawn chair.

Intending to go up a few hundred feet, he instead soared to 16,000 feet (4,800 meters), into jet airliner space. Increasingly cold, Walters descended after shooting some of the balloons with a BB gun. He finally crashed into a power line but survived.

Ninomiya remembers hearing of Walters's adventure. "He did this in such a dangerous way that it discouraged me from pursuing cluster ballooning for many years," Ninomiya said.

For more than a decade, Ninomiya instead flew hot-air balloons and cloudhoppers (single-person hot-air balloons), logging more than 700 hours in the air.

Then, seven years ago, he heard that Don Piccard, who flew clusters of plastic balloons in 1957 and 1962—including a flight to 17,747 feet (5,409 meters) that is still a world altitude record in one ballooning category—was testing new cluster balloons.

(In 1937 Piccard's father, Jean, became the first person to use clusters of gas balloons to fly.)

"I called [Piccard] up and said I'd be interested in doing it," Ninomiya said.

For the test flight Ninomiya used seven large Mylar balloons. He soon switched to smaller latex balloons, using up to 72 balloons for each flight. To date, he has made 28 cluster-balloon flights.

"All of them have been among my most magical flying experiences," he said.

Calm Winds

While hot-air ballooning is considered a bona fide sport, certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, cluster ballooning is guided by few rules.

"Hot-air balloons have been extensively tested," Ninomiya said. "As long as you don't do anything dumb, you're going to be OK. Cluster ballooning, on the other hand, is challenging, because you have to build [the vehicle] yourself and there's no one to consult about it."

Like hot-air balloons, cluster-balloon craft are usually flown in the very early morning, when winds are calm. Preparations for a morning flight start before dawn.

A crew of 15 people will take up to an hour and a half to inflate 50 to 150 latex balloons, depending on the mix of sizes. Ninomiya's balloons are 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2 meters) in diameter.

In England there are two other people who fly cluster balloons. They use up to 600 party-size toy balloons.

The inflated balloons are then sealed using tape and cable ties, and secured to sandbags. The balloons are tied in groups of four or more to the ends of long nylon straps that the pilot can easily cut away.

The pilot is in a harness designed for paragliding, which includes a rear-mounted emergency parachute. The pilot can stand up to take off or land.

Ninomiya takes off semiprone, leaning forward with balloons in each hand, and more attached to his legs and feet. During the flight he sits back in the harness for greater comfort.

With the pilot tethered to the ground, water ballast is adjusted so that the cluster balloon is slightly buoyant. This allows for an initial rate of ascent of at 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60 meters) a minute. The crew will release the ground tether at the pilot's signal.

"When I take off, the feeling is one of relief," Ninomiya said. "You have to orchestrate this with so many people who are generally very sleepy and doing this as volunteers."

To ascend, Ninomiya drops ballast water. To level out, he will burst balloons with one of the three knives he carries. Among the other equipment he brings with him are an aircraft radio, GPS location device, altitude meter, and a camera.

Keep on Flying

Directional control depends on the wind directions at different altitudes. Steering is done by going up or down, depending on how the wind blows. Prior to launching, Ninomiya puts up a typical party balloon to check the wind directions.

"There are fewer controlled inputs you can use than in hot-air ballooning," he said. "But in a hot-air balloon you may be out of fuel after two hours. In cluster ballooning you can just keep on flying as long as you're flying level."

Once, in southern California, equipped with a transponder and written permission from air traffic control officials, he got up to 21,400 feet (6,500 meters). "It got pretty cold," he said. "I didn't stick around that long."

Landing is the big challenge. The pilot will head away from cities, airports, and power lines. A chase crew on the ground will try to meet and stop him by grabbing the harness.

But if the crew doesn't make it, the pilot will have to stabilize himself. In windy conditions, he may have to cut away or burst many balloons to stop them from dragging him along the ground.

"Once or twice I have landed when the wind was about 5 to 7 miles (8 to 10 kilometers) per hour on the surface," Ninomiya said. "That doesn't sound fast until you realize it's the speed at which balloons are going to be dragging you across the ground."

After the flight the balloons are deflated. Only some types of latex balloons are reusable for several flights. Balloon festivals usually pay for the helium, which runs U.S. $900 to $1,200 per flight. Ninomiya pays for the balloons, which cost $700 to $900 per flight.

Ninomiya, who works for a health care consulting firm in San Diego, doesn't receive an appearance fee and never makes money on the flights.

He plans to fly his cluster-balloon apparatus in all 50 U.S. states within the next five to ten years, a quest he calls the "States of Enlightenment." So far, he has flown in nine states.

"A lot of people think it's very cool," he said. "They call my name and wave goodbye as I take off. But there are some who think it's kind of silly, a bizarre thing to do."

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