Kent Couch, a 48-year-old petrol station owner in the US, flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) across the Oregon desert on Saturday, landing in a field in Idaho.

Couch covered about 235 miles (378 kilometres) in about nine hours after lifting off at dawn from his petrol station in Bend, Oregon riding in a green lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons.

He eventually used a BB gun, a type of air gun designed to shoot pellets, to shoot some of the balloons to reduce his altitude, landing in the tiny farming community of Cambridge, Idaho. The "balloon chair pilot" as he has been dubbed by friends, kissed his wife, children and the family dog, a Chihuahua named Isabella, before taking off in his chair.

Couch got a push from the ground crew so he could clear light poles and soared over across US Highway 20 into a bright blue sky. "I would say the best thing is just the peace, serenity of the trip. It's just so quiet", Couch said before embarking on his trip. "I'd do this every weekend if I had the time and the money and the people. So it's just a fun trip. Mostly it's just about having a good time while I'm floating around up there", he added.

Couch's wife, Susan, said called him crazy, telling reporters: "I just want to make sure he's safe and nothing happens up there". This was Couch's third balloon flight. He said the idea occurred to him after watching a television show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles of truck driver Larry Walters, who gained folk hero fame but was fined 1,500 US dollars for violating air traffic rules.

In 2006, Couch had to parachute out after popping too many balloons. Last year he flew 193 miles (311 kilometers) to the sagebrush of northeastern Oregon, short of his goal.

Each of the 150 balloons could lift four pounds (1.81 kilograms), with the chair weighing about 400 pounds (181 kilograms), and Couch and his parachute adding another 200 pounds (91 kilograms). Couch estimated the rig cost about six-thousand US dollars, mostly for helium. Costs were defrayed by corporate sponsors