Kent Couch Was Fined For Flight Last Year

It sounds so easy. Just attach a big bunch of helium balloons to a lawn chair and drift with the wind. But Kent Couch says beware the FAA ... and the high price of helium.

Couch, a gas station owner and craft beer seller from Bend, OR is one of a small cadre of lawn chair balloonists. He made headlines last year when he made a tandem flight with Iraqi "adventurer" Fareed Lafta. But that flight cost Couch $4,500 in fines from the FAA, which said that the pair flew without valid pilot's licenses on unregistered aircraft that were not certified as airworthy. The Associated Press reports that the fine was made public this week by the Bend Bulletin.

Couch says his attorney negotiated the fine down $1,000, and that he paid by certified check using money from a sponsor, but the FAA says it has not received the payment. Fareed was also fined, but he is no longer in the United States.

But Couch also says that while helium carries him aloft, its cost is keeping him grounded. He said that the gas is five times more expensive than it was when he made his first flight in 2006.

Couch said he had been interviewed by the FAA after some of his earlier flights, but this was the first time he has been fined.

(Kent Couch pictured in 2008 file photo.)

FMI: www.faa.gov