The first passengers on a hot air balloon were a rooster, a duck and a sheep!
Do you know what buoyancy is? It’s the ability of an object to stay afloat in a fluid. Example? Ballon, which all of us love unanimously, irrespective of age. Okay, but what do we call a balloon that’s not only lighter-than-air, but can also lift other objects? Yes, it’s hot air balloon. In case of a hot air balloon, its total weight is less than the weight of the air it displaces. Now that you have understood how a hot air balloon operates, you are probably eager to know who came up with the idea! Read on to find out.
Hot air balloon was born in France!
Two brothers named Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier, who were French in origin, first came up with the idea of hot air balloons. They were in their late 20s and had just set up a paper mill. One fine day, they were trying to float bags made out of paper and fabric. After having tried several techniques, they decided to hold a flame near the opening at the bottom of the bag. Guess what happened as soon as they did it? The bag expanded with hot air and started floating upwards. Being delighted by their accidental invention, the Montgolfier brothers designed and developed a larger (10 metres in diameter) prototype, a paper-lined silk bag and demonstrated it in a local marketplace at their hometown Annonay in June 1783. As you can possibly guess, it was an instant hit among the crowd. Following their success, the duo filed for a patent for their ’Montgolfiere’ that could fly up to 6562 feet in the air for approximately 10 minutes with no one aboard. And thus, the world welcomed the first ever hot air balloon, or simply balloon as we know it today.
Odd set of passengers for the first flight
It took only a few months for the Montgolfier duo to get their patents as well as permit for the first flight. But the brothers were sceptical about sending humans right away as they didn’t know the effects of high altitude on them. So, in September 1783, in Versailles, France, the ‘Montgolfiere’ carried a sheep, a rooster and a duck put in a basket and suspended underneath it, for a span of eight minutes under the commission of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, near the French court in front of a crowd of 130,000. It flew for 3.2 kilometres before landing safely.
What’s interesting is that this special Montgolfiere was called ‘Aerostat Reveillon’ as the brothers took help of a reputed French wallpaper manufacturer named Jean-Baptiste Reveillon. It was 9 metres in diameter and was made of taffeta and coated with alum to make it fire resistant. It even featured golden coloured decors, zodiac signs and the sun; symbolising contemporary French monarchy.
In case you were thinking that the animals were put at random, you are wrong. While sheep’s physiology was somewhat similar to human’s, a high-flying duck was a safe choice and was used as a control (if it started flying, it would mean danger was imminent and vice versa). Similarly, rooster was put in as it was a non-flying bird and could be used for further scientific analysis.
Humans flying on a hot air balloon
A month after the animals flew successfully on the hot air balloon, an even bigger prototype was made to accommodate two human passengers, scientist and innovator Pilatre de Rozier and military officer Marquis d’Arlandes. They were trained by the French army for emergency landing. Fortunately, the balloon was in free flight for a whole of 25 minutes (from the centre of Paris to the suburbs) and travelled 9 kilometres, before returning to the ground, untethered.
Next year, in January, the biggest Montgolfiere carried as many as seven passengers to a height of 3000 feet for nearly 20 minutes and gave a tour of the city of Lyons.