History of ballooning

The Aérostation is the technology which allows the flight within the Terrestrial atmosphere by using machines lighter than the air . The history of ballooning starts truly at the end of the XVIIIe century initially with the balloons inflated with the hot air, then with the Hydrogène. It leads to the development of the Dirigeable S which, a time, will compete with air transport by plane and finishes tragically with the accident of the Hindenburg in 1937. Ballooning is, at the beginning of XXIe century, primarily an activity of sport and leisure. The balloons remain used with fine scientists, meteorology in particular. Projects of airships reappear periodically for the transport of cumbersome and weighty loads.

See the article: History of aviation for the heavier than the air .

First tests

The first recorded experiment of flight of a balloon filled with hot air could be that carried out in the presence of the king Jean V of Portugal on August 8th, 1709 by a Portuguese priest, Bartolomeu de Gusmão. The balloon built out of paper would have reached a 4 meters height.

The brothers Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier carry out their first tests with a paper balloon filled with hot air in 1782 and many not documented anecdotes give an account of these flights. The first flight of a montgolfier would have taken place with Annonay, close to Lyon, on April 25th, 1783 and it would have reached a height of approximately 300 meters. The first public demonstration will take place the June 4th 1783 in the presence of the particular States of Vivarais and the montgolfier exceeds 1800 meters height. This flight opens to them the doors of the court of Versailles where they realize, on September 19th, 1783, in the presence of the king Louis XVI, a flight in a balloon 13 meters in diameter. The first passengers are a cock, a duck and a sheep which will traverse more than 3 km to a 550 meters height opening the way with the manned flights thus…

The August 27th 1783, the physicist Jacques Charles with the assistance of the Brothers Robert, coward the first Balloon with gas filled with hydrogen in Paris, in front of the Military academy. The balloon, uninhabited, is posed to Gonesse, 25 km further.

First flights - free balloons

The real beginning of ballooning is marked by the success of the Frères Montgolfier, the November 21st 1783, of the flight of their Montgolfière where had taken seat Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d' Arlandes.

February 1st 1783, ten days after, Jacques Charles and Marie-Christmas Robert flew above the gardens of Tileries to Paris with a Ballon to gas, filled with the Hydrogène.

The January 19th 1784, take-off with Lyon of the Flesselles , enormous a Montgolfier of more than 20 000 m ³, controlled by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier with on its board Joseph Montgolfier.

The year 1784 will see, moreover, a great number of tests of take-off of montgolfier of which the many ones succeeded. That in France, but also in England and Italy.

The March 2nd 1784, the crowd gathered on the Fields of Mars in Paris attends the rise of a Aérostat inflated with the Hydrogène and controlled by Jean-Pierre Blanchard. The balloon, provided with a propeller actuated with the hand and pushed by the wind, crosses the Seine and returns to be posed street of Sevres.

As from this moment, a whole series of one-way flights to occur in Europe, in France, of course, but also in Italy and England.

The June 4th 1784, flight of the first woman, Elisabeth Thible, with Mr. Fleurant in the airship Gustave (baptized thus in the honor of the king of Sweden Gustave III, present this day).

The June 23rd 1784, triple world records, of Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and of the chemist Louis Joseph Proust on board the Montgolfier the Marie-Antoinette conceived by Etienne Montgolfier: outdistance 52 km, speed 60 km/h and altitude 3 000 m approximately.

The January 7th 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries achieve for the first time the crossing of the Manche in the direction England - France in a balloon inflated with hydrogen.

The June 15th 1785, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, which also tried to cross the English Channel but in the opposite direction, i.e. against the dominant winds, is killed with Pierre Romain on board a mixed balloon, Montgolfière and Ballon with gas.

This drama which is the first plane crash besides, will apply a brake at the various takes-off of balloon with hot air. It will be necessary to await the French revolution, where Andre-Jacques Garnerin will be named “ Aérostatier Public Festivals” so that the rises begin again.

Balloons in the army

The Comité of Public Hello decides even the November 24th 1793, the construction of a balloon with gas able to carry two observers with fine soldiers. Jean-Marie Coutelle, physicist, is the person in charge, he has as an assistant another physicist, Nicolas-Jacques Conté. The balloon, undertaking It , is ready the March 29th 1794, and a test as a prisoner is carried out, with 682 meters with the top of the Seine, Coutelle armed with glasses can make observations at long distance. The April 2nd, the first company of balloon pilots is created, Coutelle is the chief. They leave to join the Armée with Sambre-and-Meuse which fights with Maubeuge. The June 2nd takes place the first rise of observation under the fire of Austrian artillery. They then will move until front Charleroi with the balloon inflated to make observations the 24 and the 25. The 26, the Austrians capitulate in Charleroi. The enemy is disorientated and demoralized to see all his actions with overdraft.

A second company is created, as well as a school with Meudon and nine balloons are built. The first company is captured with Würzburg, the September 3rd 1796 following the retirement of the French Army. The tethered balloons are difficult to move, the brick furnaces to produce hydrogen are long to build, inflation lasted from two to three days, as many unfavourable factors.

They are however embarked for the Campagne of Egypt but the two ships where is all the material run. Of return in France, Bonaparte dismantles the companies of balloon pilots and firm the school.

Balloons with the help of Paris

The balloons with gas however will take again service at the time of the head office of Paris by the Germans in 1870. Nadar, which carried already before out the first air Photographie in balloon, created a “company of balloon pilots” which has as a responsibility of break the seat and to make it possible to send mail outside. Political personalities will also be able “to escape” like Leon Gambetta. In a little less than 6 months, 66 balloons will transport 11 tons of mail. Five only will be taken by the Germans, quantifies weak if account is held that the direction of the voyage was not completely controlled and that it was necessary to take into account the whims of the winds.

In remembering these exploits, important contests of balloons were organized at the time of the Olympic Games of summer of 1900 in Paris.

The advent of the airships

The free balloon is too tributary of the wind for its displacements. Very early, the general Jean-Baptist-Marie Meusnier designs a balloon of ellipsoidal form, provided with a rudder, but at the time any engine does not exist. The inventors are reduced by it to test systems containing oars which prove completely ineffective.

The first effective realization is due to the engineer Henri Giffard who uses a small steam engine to actuate the propeller; it takes off of Paris the September 25th 1852, and lands with Trappes after a way of 27 km. But the weight of the engines prevents an easier use.

The August 9th 1884, Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs make return their airship France to their starting point, a small voyage eight kilometers. It is propelled by an electrical motor weighing 44 kg with the horse and is fed by piles.

But, it is the invention of the Engine spark-ignition which will make it possible the Dirigeable to make fulgurating progress. Progress which will bring it with the Zeppelin to being able to cross the Atlantic Ocean, or with Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile to fly over the North pole. Unfortunately these are the same engines which will make it possible the Aviation to supplant ballooning.

Modern ballooning

The tragic accidents before the Second world war of large airships inflated with the Hydrogène will put a term at this epopee, and definitively will ruin the commercial use of the balloon like means of transport.

Remained the sporting and scientific uses.

The May 28th 1931, the professor Auguste Piccard and its assistant Paul Kipfel beat a record of altitude: they go up to 16.000 meters, in the Stratosphère, thanks to the use of a pressurized cabin. The objective was the study of the cosmic radiation.

The first crossing of the Atlantic in a balloon with gas, not airship, is carried out in 1978. And it is only in 1999 that Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones makes the round the world tour without stopover, by traversing 46 759 km in a little more 19 days. They had started from Suisse and attérirent in Egypt with 500 km of Cairo.

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