'Balloonatic' gets $26.5K fine for 'unconscionably stupid' lawn chair flight over Calgary

I almost did that same thing 20 years ago when I was drunk. Fortunately I ran out of helium.

Your worst fear? Kid with a BB gun.

Did a little research on this one. Original story came out December 22nd, 2016 for an incident that occurred on July 22nd, 2015.. He was fined $5,000 and ordered to make a $20,000 donation to a charity of his choice. (Heft and slightly odd, but I'd be a lot happier giving my money to charity than to the state).

I also read that he contacted the Transportation center in Canada prior to taking his 20 minute flight. Air Traffic Control had a visual on him until 7,000 ft at which point he was above cloud cover and was no longer visible. Though this article cites that 24 aircraft were active during his flight, but does not reveal that only 2 were in the vicinity of the balloons and both were notified of the balloon cluster prior to entering the inhabited airspace.

Funny enough, one pilot did get a visual and made a "UFO" call to the radio tower! Daniel claims he has no regrets. I find it a bit odd that such a stunt would be considered illegal. I suppose his contraption can be considered an aircraft. However, I feel one commenter's post sums it up quite nicely when he said, "It's generally illegal to have fun in Canada".