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| The history of ballooning |
Flying sheep?
The Montgolfier balloon
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The first flight took place in Versailles, September 1783, in a balloon made by Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier. On board the paper and cotton balloon were a sheep, a duck and a cockerel.
This first balloon had no heat source of it's own, instead being launched over a large furnace built specially for the occasion.
It proved the concept of balloon flight and the animal pioneers were followed a few months later by the first humans to fly; Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis D'Arlandes, two members of the french royal court.
Launched on 21st November, this was more like a 'real' hot air balloon because it had it's own straw-powered burner mounted in the balloon's mouth.
Despite partially catching fire and suffering burn damage, the balloon flew for 25 minutes and landed safely on the outskirts of Paris. It managed to reach a maximum height of 3000ft during it's brief flight.
The alternative method
At about the same time as the Montgolfier's experiments another frenchman, Msr. Charles was using recently discovered Hydrogen gas as a method of lift in his balloons. The first manned hydrogen balloon took off from Paris on 1st December 1783.
Hydrogen and Helium
Charles' hydrogen balloon seemed much more effective than the Montgolfier balloon, and most balloons and airships used this method of flight for the next 180 years. Hydrogen was replaced by the safer, non-flammable Helium after the german airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed in the early 1930's.
The modern balloon
In the late 1950's, the United States government experimented with heated air as a more economical replacement for Helium, and developed the modern hot air balloon.
On October 10, 1960 the Raven took to the air. Launched from Brunig, Nebraska with a nylon envelope and a propane powered burner, this was the first true modern hot air balloon.
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