In 1982, a truck driver made headlines when he tied 42 helium balloons to a garden chair and flew over part of Los Angeles. A new stage musical reclaims him as a hero, although questions remain over his story’s tragic ending.

In the aftermath of his unconventional voyage, Larry Walters assured the American public he wasn’t actually a crackpot who had risked life and limb with a hare-brained scheme that was dreamed up on a whim.

No – taking flight had been a lifelong ambition, he told interviewers afterwards.

But he had been rejected by the US Air Force because of bad eyesight, so carried out years of careful research to make his dream come true in his own peculiarly homespun way.

When he came back down to Earth – somehow unscathed after floating in the chair across the approach to LAX airport and landing in power lines – Walters’ escapade caused a minor sensation.

In an interview on David Letterman’s TV show, he tried to explain how serious his plan had been – but his references to his “craft” and “ground crew” failed to quell the laughter from the audience.

The craft was an ordinary piece of garden furniture, and the ground crew were a few friends and his fiancée in her small back yard.

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