The History of Balloon Flight

Essential Questions:

How did hot balloons become the first reliable vehicles of human flight?

What are the scientific principles behind hot air balloon flight?

The Kongming

lantern

Lantern Launch Video Clip

The oldest type of hot

air balloon is the

Kongming lantern.

It was invented by the Chinese around 200 BC.

Kongming lanterns were made of oiled rice paper with

bamboo frames.

Each lantern was powered

by a small candle.

The Kongming lantern is named after Kong Ming Deng, who ruled

China around 200 AD.

It is said that when Kong Ming Deng was surrounded by an enemy army,

he checked the wind direction and sent the floating lanterns as a signal for

help.

It is also said the shape of the lantern is like the hat Kong Ming

wore.

Kongming Lanterns are still used in Chinese festivals today.

The kongming lantern works on the same

principal as all hot-air

balloons.

Click here for more

information on what makes a hot air balloon

rise.

What causes a hot air balloon to descend?

               

Since hot air is lighter and less dense than the cool air

around the balloon, the heated air from a burner

causes the whole balloon to rise. When the air inside the balloon structure, called the

envelope, cools down, or when the hot air is let out, the balloon goes down. By letting out the air or firing

the burner, a hot-air balloon pilot can decrease or increase the altitude.

Science Demonstration

  Click on images to see the animation:          

               

The birth of the modern

hot air balloon

The first European

demonstration of a hot air

balloon took place on June

4, 1783, in Annonay, France

Joseph and Jacques

Montgolfier, two brothers who

owned a paper mill, sent up an unmanned hot-

air balloon.

The brothers had observed that smoke tended to rise,

and that paper bags placed over a fire expanded and rose.

They thought that smoke contained an undiscovered type of gas,

and that if they could capture that gas in a lightweight bag, the bag

would rise into the air.

Their original test balloon was made of paper and linen and opened at the bottom.

When flaming paper was held near the opening, the bag, called a 'balon', slowly

expanded with the hot air and floated

upward.

The Montgolfiers believed they had discovered a new gas that was

lighter than air. They named this gas after themselves:“Montgolfier

gas”

In fact, the gas was merely air, which became buoyant as it was heated.

The balloon rose because the hot air inside it was lighter than the

surrounding atmosphere.

After testing several paper balloons, the brothers were finally ready to build a large cloth and

paper balloon.

They tested it on June 4, 1783, in the marketplace at Annonay. The balloon rose about 6,562 feet into the air.

After their success, the

brothers went to Paris and built an

even larger balloon.

On September 19, 1783, in Versailles,

the Montgolfiers flew the first

passengers in a basket suspended

below a hot-air balloon.

The passengers were a sheep, a rooster, and a duck.

The eight minute flight took place in front of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and a crowd of

about 130,000 onlookers.

The balloon

flew nearly 2 miles before

returning the

occupants safely to earth.

Confident that a balloon could

be constructed to safely carry

people, the Montgolfier

brothers constructed their largest balloon yet.

The first manned balloon

flight took place on October

15, 1783.

The big balloon- at the end of a tether- rose 84 feet into the

air with its first human passenger:

Jean-François Piltre de Rozier, a twenty-six year old

doctor.

Piltre de Rozier

stayed aloft for almost

four minutes.

He wrote of his experience:

“I felt as if I were flying away from the earth and all its troubles and persecutions forever. It

was not mere delight, it was physical rapture….I am finished with the Earth. From

now on our place is in the sky!”

A few weeks later, on

November 21, 1783, de Rozier

and Marquis d'Arlandes (a

college buddy of Joseph

Montgolfier) became the first people to go up in an untethered

balloon.

It flew from the center of Paris to the

suburbs, about 5.5

miles in 25 minutes.

On January 19, 1784, a huge hot-air balloon

built by the Montgolfiers

carried a total of seven

passengers to a height of 3,000 feet over the

city of Lyons.

The age of human flight had begun

Hot air balloon time lapse