The history of ballooning, both with hot air and gas, spans many centuries. It includes many firsts, including the first human flight, first flight across the English Channel, first flight in North America, and first aircraft related disaster.
Premodern and unmanned balloons
Unmanned hot air balloons are popular in Chinese history. Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han kingdom, in the Three Kingdoms era (c. AD 220–280) used airborne lanterns for military signaling. These lanterns are known as Chinese lanterns or Kongming lanterns (孔明灯).Ancient Chinese InventionsThe Ten Thousand Infallible Arts of the Prince of Huai-Nan
While there is no direct documentary or archaeological evidence of any manned or unmanned flights prior to those discussed below occurred using these methods, Ege notes an indirect report of evidence that the Chinese "solved the problem of aerial navigation" using balloons, hundreds of years before the 18th century. The Mongolian army studied Kongming lanterns from China and used them in the Battle of Legnica during the Mongol invasion of Poland.Joseph Needham (1965). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering; rpr. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd. This is the first time ballooning was known in the western world.
The first documented balloon flight in Europe was by the Brazilian-Portuguese priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão. On 8 August 1709, in Lisbon, Bartolomeu de Gusmão managed to lift a small balloon made of paper full of hot air about four meters in front of king John V and the Portuguese court.AMEIDA, L. Ferrand de, "Gusmão, Bartolomeu Lourenço de", in SERRÃO, Joel, Dicionário de História de Portugal, Porto, Figueirinhas, 1981, vol. III, pp. 184–185CARVALHO, História dos Balões, Lisboa, Relógio d'Agua, 1991CRUZ FILHO, F. Murillo, Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão: Sua Obra e o Significado Fáustico de Sua Vida, Rio de Janeiro, Biblioteca Reprográfica Xerox, 1985SILVA, Inocencio da, ARANHA, Brito, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional, T. I, pp. 332–334TAUNAY, Affonso d'Escragnolle, Bartolomeu de Gusmão: inventor do aerostato: a vida e a obra do primeiro inventor americano, S. Paulo, Leia, 1942TAUNAY, Affonso d'Escragnolle, Bartholomeu de Gusmão e a sua prioridade aerostatica, S. Paulo: Escolas Profissionaes Salesianas, 1935, Sep. do Annuario da Escola Polytechnica da Univ. de São Paulo, 1935 He also claimed to have built a balloon named (Big bird) and attempted to lift himself from Saint George Castle in Lisbon, landing about one kilometre away. However the claim of this feat remains uncertain, even though there is record of this flight in the source used by the FAI (World Air Sports Federation) the exact distance and conditions of the flight are not confirmed.
First hydrogen balloon Following the publication of Robert Boyle's Law in 1662, and Henry Cavendish's 1766 work on hydrogen, Joseph Black proposed that if the gaseous element filled a balloon, the inflated object could rise up into the air. Jacques Charles, whose study of gases led to his namesake law of volumes, had studied the works of Cavendish, Black, and Tiberius Cavallo, and also thought that hydrogen could lift a balloon.
Jacques Charles designed the balloon, and the Robert brothers constructed a lightweight, airtight gas bag. Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond organized a crowd-funded subscription to finance the brothers' project. The Roberts dissolved rubber in a solution of turpentine, with which they varnished stitched-together sheets of silk, to make the main envelope. They used alternating strips of red and white silk, but the rubberising varnish yellowed the white silk.
Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers began filling the world's first hydrogen balloon on 23 August 1783, in the Place des Victoires, Paris. The balloon was comparatively small, a 35-cubic-metre sphere of rubberised silk (about 13 feet in diameter), and only capable of lifting about 9 kg. It was filled with hydrogen that had been made by pouring nearly a quarter of a tonne of sulphuric acid onto half a tonne of scrap iron. The hydrogen gas was fed into the envelope via lead pipes; as it was not passed through cold water, the gas was hot when produced, and then contracted as it cooled in the balloon, causing great difficulty in filling the balloon completely.
Daily progress bulletins were issued on the inflation, attracting a crowd that became so great that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night to the Champ de Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower), a distance of 4 kilometres. On 27 August 1783, the balloon was released; Benjamin Franklin was among the crowd of onlookers. The balloon flew northwards for 45 minutes, pursued by chasers on horseback, and landed 21 kilometres away in the village of Gonesse, where the reportedly terrified local peasants attacked it with pitchforks and knives, and destroyed it.
First unmanned flight On 5 June 1783, the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated an unmanned hot-air balloon in diameter. On 19 September 1783, their balloon Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep called Montauciel ("Climb-to-the-sky"), a duck and a rooster. The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted aloft. It was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a bird that did not fly at high altitudes. This demonstration was performed before a crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered two miles (3 km), and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet (460 m). The craft landed safely after flying.
First manned flight
The first clearly recorded instance of a balloon carrying human passengers used hot air to generate buoyancy and was built by the brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier in Annonay, France. These brothers came from a family of paper manufacturers and had noticed ash rising in paper fires. The Montgolfier brothers gave their first public demonstration of their invention on 4 June 1783. After experimenting with unmanned balloons and flights with animals, the first manned balloon flight took place on 15 October 1783, from the Folie Titon in Paris, piloted by the scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier with the balloon tethered. The balloon reached a height of 84 feet (approximately 25 metres), the maximum height allowed by the tethering ropes, and stayed aloft for 4 minutes and 25 seconds. Further tethered test flights were carried out on 19 October 1783 with passengers including Giroud de Villette, and the Marquis François d'Arlandes separately accompanying de Rozier.
The first untethered, free flight with human passengers was on 21 November 1783. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but de Rozier, along with d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honor. For this occasion the diameter of the balloon rose to almost 50 feet, with a smoky fire slung under the neck of the balloon placed in an iron basket; it was controllable and replenishable by the balloonists. In 25 minutes the two men traveled just over five miles. Enough fuel remained on board at the end of the flight to have allowed the balloon to fly four to five times as far, but burning embers from the fire threatened to engulf the balloon and the men decided to land as soon as they were over open countryside.
News of the balloon flights spread quickly. By December 1783 Goethe wrote to a friend on Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Bucholz's attempt in Weimar "to master the art of Montgolfier". The pioneering work of the Montgolfier brothers in developing the hot air balloon was recognised by this type of balloon being named Montgolfière after them.
First manned hydrogen balloon flight
Only a few days later, at 1:45pm on 1 December 1783, professor Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers (Les Frères Robert) launched a new, manned hydrogen balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, amid vast crowds and excitement. The balloon was held on ropes and led to its final launch place by four of the leading noblemen in France, the Marechal de Richelieu, Marshal de Biron, the Bailli de Suffren, and the Duke of Chaulnes. Jacques Charles was accompanied by Nicolas-Louis Robert as co-pilot of the 380-cubic-metre, hydrogen-filled balloon. The envelope was fitted with a hydrogen release valve, and was covered with a net from which the basket was suspended. Sand ballast was used to control altitude. They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m) and landed at sunset in Nesles-la-Vallée after a flight of 125 minutes, covering 36 km. The chasers on horseback, who were led by the Duc de Chartres, held down the craft while both Charles and Robert alighted.
Charles then decided to ascend again, but alone this time because the balloon had lost some of its hydrogen. This time he ascended rapidly to an altitude of about 3,000 metres), where he saw the sun again. He began suffering from aching pain in his ears so he 'valved' to release gas, and descended to land gently about 3 km away at Tour du Lay. Unlike the Robert brothers, Charles never flew again, although a gas balloon, using hydrogen or any other cold gas for its lift, came to be called a Charlière in his honour.
Charles and Robert carried a barometer and a thermometer to measure the pressure and the temperature of the air, making this not only the first manned hydrogen balloon flight, but also the first balloon flight to provide meteorological measurements of the atmosphere above the Earth's surface.
It is reported that 400,000 spectators witnessed the launch, and that hundreds had paid one crown each to help finance the construction and receive access to a "special enclosure" for a "close-up view" of the take-off. Among the "special enclosure" crowd was Benjamin Franklin, the diplomatic representative of the United States of America. Also present was Joseph Montgolfier, whom Charles honoured by asking him to release the small, bright green, pilot balloon to assess the wind and weather conditions.
Further milestones
The next great challenge was to fly across the English Channel, a feat accomplished on 7 January 1785, by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and Dr. John Jeffries.
The first aircraft disaster occurred in May 1785 when the town of Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland was seriously damaged when the crash of a balloon resulted in a fire that burned down about 100 houses, making the town home to the world's first aviation disaster. To this day, the town shield depicts a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Blanchard went on to make the first manned flight of a balloon in America on 10 January 1793. His hydrogen-filled balloon took off from a prison yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The flight reached 5,800 feet (1,770 m) and landed in Deptford Township, New Jersey. President George Washington was among the guests observing the takeoff. Sophie Blanchard, married to Jean-Pierre, was the first woman to pilot her own balloon and the first woman to adopt ballooning as a career.
Gas balloons became the most common type from the 1790s until the 1960s. Pierre Testu-Brissy completed over 50 flights in his lifetime, including the first ascent on horseback on 16 October 1798 from Belleville Park, Paris.Ballooning History, Who's Who.