Al Mingalone goes for a ride
“Lawn Chair Larry” Walters wasn’t the first man to take flight via balloons. Walters had an accidental predecessor a few decades earlier in the small town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine on September 28, 1937.
A company by the name of Dewey & Almey of Cambridge, Massachusetts, recently got into the business of manufacturing latex balloons that can be inflated to a diameter of ten feet and were designed for weather observation. The public relations rep of Dewey & Almey sent a press release about the new balloons to Phil Coolidge, a photographer with Paramount News and the wheels started spinning in Coolidge’s head over the possibilities of these balloons and how they could be used in a story.
Phil Coolidge along with his son and fellow newsreel photographer, Jake Coolidge, hatched up the idea that sending a photographer aloft with a few of these balloons would make for a novel angle for shooting film of the local scenery – “house hopping with weather balloon” was the name of the special feature, and thus he needed a shooter who was both small and light.The plan was to attach a dozen or so of these balloons to a harness, and then send the photog aloft to a height of 100 feet, with the harness and balloons being ultimately anchored to the ground via a rope tied to a car bumper.
The person Phil Coolidge chose for this assignment was Al Mingalone. Mingalone was young, small and crazy enough to go along with the stunt. But he also was married with three small children at the time, and took one look at the original location chosen – Old Orchard Beach alongside the Atlantic Ocean, and promptly vetoed the location. If something went wrong and he went sailing off over the ocean, the next dry spot of land was Europe. The location was then moved three miles inland to the golf course.
At the golf course, Mingalone was strapped into a harness tied to a bumper of a car with a hundred feet of line and Phil Coolidge started to inflate balloons and tie them to Mingalone. One balloon at a time was attached and after twenty-seven were tied on, Mingalone still could only jump about twenty-five feet into the air – not high enough to shoot the footage needed for this feature, he needed to be 100 feet up. It was cold, wet and the harness was starting to chafe and Mingalone was getting tired.
One of the spectators at the golf course was the priest of a local church, Father James J. Mullen. Jake Coolidge had invited Father Mullen to come watch since he was interested in aviation and newsreels. Much ribbing went on and Mingalone was told there was nothing to worry about since a priest was present. While they were kidding, they didn’t realize how true their joking was to be.
“The devil with it”, said Mingalone in exasperation, “this time lets put on a load for a decent jump and get it over with.” Coolidge inflated five more balloons and tied them to Mingalone’s harness and he jumped and started to rise.
As Mingalone rose above the country side, he wound up his eyemo and started to roll. Seconds later the rope he was tied to pulled taut and snapped. Mingalone kept on rising. Mingalone recalls what happened during his ascent:
“I’d entered the lower bank of a quick rising fog, and couldn’t see a thing. I tried to pull myself up the ten feet to the balloon lines. Part way, cramps grabbed me and I stopped. A sudden squall struck. I was jerked backward and dropped to the end of my harness. My camera fell free. Having lost twelve pounds of ballast I shot skyward again. My clothes were wet. The air was cold and raw. I must have been about 700 feet of the ground.”
Father Mullen, who happened to be an expert sharpshooter, ran to his car along with Jake Coolidge and headed to the church to grab his rifle and they sped off after Mingalone. Near Wells Beach, they caught up with Mingalone and Mullen fired several shots at the balloons. Mullen’s aim was good and the balloons started to slowly leak and lower the frighten Mingalone to the ground, some thirteen miles from the golf course where he originally ascended into the sky.
Mingalone, without a scratch from his adventure, quickly ripped off the harness and watched it ascend into the fog clouded sky. As they watched the balloons going skyward, Mingalone began to grieve that he didn’t wait until the men had arrived before he let the balloons go, as he wanted to take four of them home to his kids.
Twenty years later, Mingalone would find himself on the streets of New York City as a television news cameraman for ABC Telenews, reminiscing the less hectic days of a newsreel cameraman.