It is said that Joseph Montgolfiere was inspired to create a flying machine whilst sitting in his living room and staring at his fire. In one version of the story he is inspired by watching pieces of soot get drawn up through the chimney. Another version tells us that he was watching his washing drying by the fire and noticed the fabric rising in the heat. All versions of the tale end with Joseph speculating that it was the soot itself that had the lifting power, so he and his brother set about to create a flying machine that captured enough soot to give it the strength to lift it up into the sky.
Confident of their new invention, the Montgolfiere brothers invited the general public to witness the maiden voyage of their unmanned flying machine on 5th June 1783. It managed to fly for ten minutes before landing only a mile and a half away.
Mongolfier brothers’ hot air balloon from 1783
The crowds were astonished and news soon travelled to Paris, where Jacques Charles, a well-respected physicist, was asked to create a similar contraption for the Academy of Sciences using hydrogen, as it was lighter than air. The early development of gas balloons ran in parallel with hot air ballooning, and there was much friendly competition between the Montgolfieres and Mr Charles.
Joseph Montgolfiere set off for Paris to further demonstrate his hot air balloon and on 19 September 1783, the Aérostat Réveillon was flown before the public at the royal palace in Versailles. King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette were watching, but kept a safe distance due to the horrid smell that came from the fire. The balloon was the largest to date and its passengers consisted of a cockerel, a duck and a sheep.
The flight lasted about eight minutes and travelled a then record breaking distance of two miles. The animals landed safely, and were found grazing in the field. King Louis, however, was concerned that hot air ballooning might not be safe for human travel and declared that the first human hot air balloon passengers should be convicts.
Young scientist Pilatre de Rozier was also watching in the audience. Spellbound by what he had just witnessed, he challenged the King’s ruling, stating that ‘the glory of mankind’s first flight should not go to criminals’. Both he and the Marquis d’Arlandes petitioned and eventually the king granted them permission to be the first passengers.
de Rozier and d’Arlandes made their first flight in a Montgolfier hot air balloon on 21 November, 1783, taking off from the Bois de Boulogne. They travelled for around five and a half miles and landed on the outskirts of Paris, making it the first successful human flight and firmly marking their names in history.
The balloon flight by Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes on 21 November 1783.
During this time Jacques Charles had been fine tuning his design for a gas balloon and was preparing to launch in front of a huge crowd from the Jardin des Tuileries on December 1st, 1783. The aircraft itself was technically superior to that of the Montgolfieres and the design for gas balloons has changed very little since this early attempt. The flight took place as planned and, along with Aine Robert, Charles travelled as high as ten thousand feet. They landed to much applause and celebration, making them instantly famous throughout Paris, with news of a magnificent flying machine travelling across Europe.
Gas ballooning remained very popular for the next few years, with the first manned balloon flight in England taking off from Moorfields just outside of London in September, 1784 . Pilatre de Rozier made the headlines once again in 1785 by becoming the world’s first aerial fatality, when his hydrogen balloon caught fire and fell 3,000 feet to the ground.
Early balloon designs
Despite this tragedy, gas ballooning became the more dominant form of the two designs and was used throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, increasingly with military applications. Helium replaced the more dangerous Hydrogen filled designs and gas ballooning is used today to reach extraordinary heights and travel great distances. Hot air ballooning, by contrast, was almost completely forgotten about.
Fast forward to 1956 and Ed Yost, an American who was commissioned by the US Navy to create gas balloons, discovered that if he coated nylon in polyurethane and used propane to power a burner, he could build a hot air balloon that was strong enough and powerful to continue the Montgolfier’s legacy and fly to modern standards. On 22nd October, 1960, Yost flew a balloon from Sioux Falls in Nebraska successfully for thirty minutes. Modern hot air ballooning was born. Yost went on to attempt more challenging and daring flights with other pilots, eventually gaining the attention of a young Don Cameron. Along with friends, he began building his own hot air balloon. It was to be named Bristol Belle, and flew for the first time in 1967…
To read the rest of the story and to learn more about the longstanding connection between ballooning and Bristol, click here.
Above Bristol 