Jean Baptiste Meusnier

Meusnier is sometimes portrayed as the inventor of the dirigible, because of an uncompleted project he conceived in 1784, not long after the first balloon flights of the Montgolfiers, and presented to the French Academy of Sciences.

After their successful hydrogen balloon flights in 1783, professor Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers built an elongated, steerable craft that followed Jean Baptiste Meusnier's proposals.

[1] On 15 July 1784 the brothers flew for 45 minutes from Saint-Cloud to Meudon with M. Collin-Hullin and Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Chartres in their elongated balloon.

The absence of a gas release valve also meant that the duke had to slash the envelope to prevent it rupturing when they reached an altitude of about 4,500 metres (15,000 ft).

[2][3] On 19 September 1784 the brothers and M. Collin-Hullin flew for 6 hours 40 minutes, covering 186 km (116 mi) from Paris to Beuvry near Béthune, passing over Saint-Just-en-Chaussée and the region of Clermont de l’Oise.