The Montgolfier Brothers' Balloon
Joseph and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier invented the hot air balloon.
One hundered and twenty years before the Wright Brothers these two French brothers produced the world's first functional flying machine.
Just a few years before the French Revolution, the Montgolfier Brothers invented the hot air balloon, the first successful human flying machine. Their invention is almost contemporaneous with the invention of the hydrogen balloon by fellow Frenchman Jacques Alexandre César Charles. Hydrogen did not present the problem of carrying a firebox aloft, and thus became the predominant type of balloon until propane produced hot air became popular in the 1960’s.
Even the brothers did not fully understand why their invention worked. They believed that a “Montgolfier gas” was a component of smoke, and that dense smoke was what made their balloons fly rather than hot air. To achieve this smoke they burned damp straw and wool, and even old shoes as the fuel to fill their balloons. They made their first true balloon fly as an unmanned craft in June of 1783. It consisted of several sections that were buttoned together using almost 2000 buttons. It was destroyed on landing by local peasants in southern France who were alarmed by the highly unusual occurrence of it flying over and landing in their rural fields.
A few months later the brothers were demonstrating their balloon before King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the Palace of Versailles. The King was not pleased with the thick black smoke they produced on the palace grounds, and an old story says that he forbade human passengers on the first demonstration although there was a willing volunteer in the person of Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (a physicist) present. Whether or not at the King’s behest the passengers on this first flight were a rooster, a duck, and a sheep. They flew on September 19, 1783. The Montgolfiers’ father had forbidden them to ever fly in their invention, but Jacques Ettienne had already disobeyed him and made a short tethered flight to almost 400 feet up. The Montgolfiers also did some experiments in parachute technology.
De Rozier was finally allowed to fly and was accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes on a second demonstration at Versailles on October 15th. The balloon was un-tethered, and soared over Paris once tilting, belching out black smoke, and making a descent, and once nearly catching fire. Jacques Etienne was 43 years old in 1783, and his brother Joseph was 5 years younger. Their invention went from basic concept to successful testing in under one year. Their un-tethered manned experiment is generally cited as the first Balloon flight. The hydrogen gas discovered by Englishman Henry Cavendish in 1766 was soon to become the preferred gas for ballooning, but a hot air balloon, even if imperfectly understood, was the first craft to carry men aloft. Another Montgolfier balloon flew over Lyons carrying seven passengers in January of 1784.
Balloons became important in a military reconnaissance role, and were a great curiosity for stout hearted tourists, but the fact that they were generally at the mercy of the winds when un-tethered made them of little use in transportation, although they did inspire over a hundred years of belief that lighter than air craft held a great promise for the future of transportation.
