HOUSE FLIES: Balloonists Jonathan Trappe and Nidia Ramirez with their “Up” house, which they piloted over Mexico (right) in a stunt inspired by the film.
Need any more proof that real estate is sky high?
A daredevil from North Carolina channeled Carl Fredricksen, the elderly airborne hero of the animated movie “Up,” and floated away in a house carried by hundreds of balloons.
Jonathan Trappe and co-pilot Nidia Ramirez tied 215 huge helium balloons to a 3,727-pound house resembling Fredricksen’s and took off in Leon, Mexico, for a two-hour flight on Sunday.
It was a warm-up for a 2,500-mile trans-Atlantic flight next summer.
For that ride, Trappe, 38, of Raleigh, will use 365 balloons and cruise at 18,000 to 25,000 feet.
But instead of a house, he’ll be ferried through the air in a 7-foot lifeboat, just in case he has to make an unexpected splash landing.
“I have been looking for an epic challenge,” Trappe said recently.
His goal, he said, is “living an interesting life.”
“For me, that is enough.”
Not that his life wasn’t interesting before.
Talking about his recent balloon flight across the French Alps, he noted, “Hannibal crossed on his way to attack Rome, and he made the crossing with war elephants.”
Trappe said he went for a “far less hostile reason, but not necessarily with a more practical mode of transportation.”
From the base of the mountain range, he said, “I cast myself into the sky and rode the wind.
“I floated above Earth in this majestic region, in the country that first hosted manned flight over 225 years ago.”