History of Ballooning
The Inventors
The Montgolfier brothers, born in Annonay, France, were inventors of the first practical balloon. Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Ètienne were 2 of the 16 children of Pierre Montgolfier, whose prosperous paper factories in the small town of Vidalon, helped support their balloon experiments.
The brothers discovered that heated air from a fire directed into a paper or fabric bag made the bag rise. They demonstrated this discovery in 1782 when a balloon they made rose into the air about 3,000 feet (1,000 metres), remained aloft for around 10 minutes, and then settled to the ground more than a mile and a half from where it rose.
In June of 1783, in the town of Annonay, they gave a public exhibition of their discovery with a balloon made of silk and lined with paper to trap the gas. It rose to about 6,000 feet (1,830 metres), travelled more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometres), and stayed aloft for 10 minutes.
On September 19, in a demonstration before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, they put a sheep, duck, and rooster aboard a balloon to determine the effect of altitude on living creatures. The balloon floated for about 8 minutes and landed safely about 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) from the launch site. The brothers carried out many more experimental flights.
The First Manned Flight
On 21st November, with a balloon made by the French Montgolfier brothers, Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis D’Arlandes kept themselves up over Paris for twenty-five minutes by energetically stoking their brazier with straw and twigs to keep the balloon hot.
The hot air balloon may have been the first aircraft, but the gas balloon was not far behind.
On December 1st 1783, Jacques Alexander Charles and Nicholas Louis Robert demonstrated the first hydrogen balloon in an equally successful ascent from Paris.
The flight lasted 2 1/2 hours and covered 25 miles (40km)
Two years later in 1785 a French balloonist, Jean Pierre Blanchard, and his American co-pilot, John Jefferies, became the first to fly across the English Channel.
Ballooning Today
For almost two centuries hot air balloons were virtually ignored until the late 1950s when a balloon was built as part of the United States Government research programme. This balloon was made of man-made fibres and was filled with air heated by a propane flame.
Soon after the start of this research program it was deemed not suitable for military use and became a sport for the adventurous, and the modern hot air balloon was born.
Ballooning started slowly with many early hot air balloons used for advertising purposes, but it didn't take long for people to be drawn to the adventure that is hot air ballooning.
Since the early days of the modern hot air balloon, the sport has gone largely unchanged. Technology has seen many advances, however hot air balloons still use many of the classical elements of the modern hot air balloon such as wicker for the basket and nylon for the envelope.
