History of ballooning
On 8 August 1709, in Lisbon, Bartolomeu de Gusmão managed to lift a small balloon made of paper full of hot air about four meters in front of king John V and the Portuguese court.
[5][6][7][8][9][10] He also claimed to have built a balloon named Passarola (Big bird) and attempted to lift himself from Saint George Castle in Lisbon, landing about one kilometre away.
[11] Following the publication of Robert Boyle's Law in 1662, and Henry Cavendish's 1766 work on hydrogen, Joseph Black proposed that if the gaseous element filled a balloon, the inflated object could rise up into the air.
[12] Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers began filling[13] the world's first hydrogen balloon on 23 August 1783, in the Place des Victoires, Paris.
Daily progress bulletins were issued on the inflation, attracting a crowd that became so great that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night to the Champ de Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower), a distance of 4 kilometres.
[14] The balloon flew northwards for 45 minutes, pursued by chasers on horseback, and landed 21 kilometres away in the village of Gonesse, where the reportedly terrified local peasants attacked it with pitchforks[14] and knives,[16] and destroyed it.
This demonstration was performed before a crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette.
[18] The first clearly recorded instance of a balloon carrying human passengers used hot air to generate buoyancy and was built by the brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier in Annonay, France.
[21] King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but de Rozier, along with the Marquis François d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honor.
By December 1783 Goethe wrote to a friend on Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Bucholz's attempt in Weimar "to master the art of Montgolfier".
[12][14][16] The chasers on horseback, who were led by the Duc de Chartres, held down the craft while both Charles and Robert alighted.
He began suffering from aching pain in his ears so he 'valved' to release gas, and descended to land gently about 3 km away at Tour du Lay.
[27] It is reported that 400,000 spectators witnessed the launch, and that hundreds had paid one crown each to help finance the construction and receive access to a "special enclosure" for a "close-up view" of the take-off.
[16] Also present was Joseph Montgolfier, whom Charles honoured by asking him to release the small, bright green, pilot balloon to assess the wind and weather conditions.
[16] The next great challenge was to fly across the English Channel, a feat accomplished on 7 January 1785, by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and Dr. John Jeffries.
Pierre Testu-Brissy completed over 50 flights in his lifetime, including the first ascent on horseback on 16 October 1798 from Belleville Park, Paris.
On 3 July 2002, Steve Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone, nonstop, in any kind of aircraft, by hot air balloon.
[32] The first manned balloon flight in England was by Signor Vincent Lunardi who ascended from Moorfields (London) on 15 September 1784.
He claimed that in May 1828 he actually took his horse up with him but this was disputed, and the public had to wait until July 1850 when he lifted off from Vauxhall Gardens with a somewhat diminutive pony as his "steed".
Robert Cocking, an artist, devised a parachute based upon Garnerin’s prototype (in which he had great faith) and ascended in a balloon from Vauxhall (London) on 24 July 1837 to about 1,500 metres (4,900 ft).
[39] In 1811 Franz Leppich [Wikidata] went to Napoleon and claimed that he could build a hydrogen balloon that would enable the French to attack from the air.
A heavily guarded, high-walled shipyard was secretly set up near Moscow with about 50 other German-speaking mechanics, and Leppich started to build airship prototypes.
Leppich's huge inflatable blimp was sewn from thick fabric, attached to a 20-meter wooden platform ringed with gun mounts and compartments for bombs.
[citation needed] During World War II, a large number of barrage balloons were inflated over the city of London in an effort to obstruct Luftwaffe air attacks during the Battle of Britain.
Whatever their effectiveness, they were a cheap defense but did not stop heavy damage inflicted on Londoners during the Blitz, probably because the Heinkel He 111 bombers flew too high.
[59] On 1 January 2011, a hot air balloon crashed in Westfield, Somerset, United Kingdom, killing both people on board.
[60] On 7 January 2012, a scenic hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, touched a power line, caught fire, and crashed just north of the town, killing all eleven people on board.
[61] On 16 March 2012, at a festival in Fitzgerald, Georgia, USA, a hot air balloon crashed due to an unexpected severe thunderstorm.
As Ristaino's actions saved the five passengers, he was nominated for the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed on civilians in the USA.
[citation needed] On 23 August 2012 in Slovenia, a hot air balloon crash-landed due to a thunderstorm, killing 6 and injuring the other 26 people on board.
