A 48-year-old gas station owner from Bend, Oregon triumphed Saturday on his third attempt in making a 235-mile (378km) ride in a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled party balloons. Kent Couch flew across the Oregon desert to the nearby state of Idaho in a trip that lasted around nine hours.

Couch covered the distance after lifting off at dawn from his gas station riding in a green armchair held aloft by more than 150 giant party balloons. To control the elevation of its flying device, Kent Couch used an air gun .

On his first attempt, in 2006, he had to bail out by parachute when he realized he had popped too many balloons. And last year, his second try ended short of the state border after flying 193 miles to the sagebrush of northeastern Oregon.

He thought it would be possible after seeing a TV show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles of truck driver Larry Walters, who earned himself folk hero fame but received a $1,500 fine for violating air traffic rules.

"Things just look different from up there. You've moving so slowly. The best thing is the peace, the serenity," Couch said before getting into his chair on Saturday.

Beside the blow pipe and air gun he took a pole to pull in balloons, a parachute, some GPS equipment, some boiled eggs, and chocolate.

He landed in a field near Cambridge, Idaho, to be welcomed by amazed locals.

Before taking up lawn-chair flights, Couch, who estimated the cost of his rig at about $6,000, mostly for helium, flew hang gliders and skydived before taking up lawn-chair flights.