On October
15, 1783 Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier became the first human being to leave the surface of the Earth and rise in the air in a man-made contraption. And what a contraption! The enormous hot air balloon that Étienne and his brother Joseph-Michel Montgolfier constructed was seventy-five feet tall
and about fifty feet in diameter with a 60,000 cubic foot capacity. It was elaborately
decorated in gold and deep blue with Fleur-de-lis, signs of the Zodiac, and suns emblazoned with the face of Louis XVI interlaced with the royal monogram. The balloon rose in the morning sky
over Paris on a tether from the workshop
where it had been created. A second flight the same day carried to
an even greater height—80 feet with passenger Pilâtre de Rozier, a chemist
and teacher who had become
interested in the experiments.
This
is generally cited as the beginning
of manned aviation. But there is one conflicting claim,
passionately supported in Portuguese speaking
lands. Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão a Brazilian born priest,
sketched elaborate drawings for an airship
lifted by hot air, certainly built models, and may have even left the ground in a prototype back in 1720. His fantastic creation was in the shape of a bird and even
included a propulsion system—sails which could be filled with bellows in the event of no wind. An account written in 1786, three years after
the Motgolfier flight claimed:
…in 1720, a
Brazilian Jesuit, named Bartholomew Gusmão, possessed of abilities,
imagination, and address, by permission of [King] John V. fabricated
a balloon in a place contiguous to the Royal
Palace, and one day, in presence of their Majesties, and an immense crowd
of spectators, raised himself, by means of a fire lighted in the machine, as
high as the cornice of the building; but through the negligence and want of
experience of those who held the cords, the machine took an oblique direction,
and, touching the cornice, burst and fell.…The balloon was in the form of a
bird with a tail and wings. The inventor proposed to make new experiments, but,
chagrined at the raillery of the common people, who called him wizard, and terrified by the Inquisition, he took the advice of his
friends, burned his manuscripts, disguised himself, and fled to Spain, where he soon after died in an
hospital.
Although
some of Gusmão’s drawing and papers have been found along with accounts of
displays with toys and models, most historians
discount a flight in a full scale craft.
This pisses the Portuguese off, who feel they have been snubbed. But then they don’t have the evidence of
thousands of Parisian eyewitnesses
and numerous artist renderings from
further flights.
The
brothers Montgolfier were younger members of the 19 children of paper maker Pierre Montgolfier of Annonay,
Ardèche. Joseph, the 12th child was born in 1740
and Étienne, the 15h, came five years later.
Joseph was brilliant but rebellious and sent away by the family
to study architecture in Paris.
When
the eldest brother and heir to their father unexpectedly died, Joseph was recalled from Paris, promoted
over older siblings, and put in charge of the family business. He made many innovations, including introducing the most modern techniques. His efforts gained the Royal notice and the company was commissioned to construct a
new mill and factory as a model
for the whole French paper industry—then
one of the most important in the country.
In
1777 Joseph idly observed laundry drying
over a fire. Sheets billowed and rose. Something was lifting
them. He concluded that it was an as yet
undiscovered gas released by combustion
which he modestly named Montgolfier Gas,
with a property he called levity.
It
was while contemplating a military
problem—the long siege of the impregnable British fortress of Gibraltar by French and Spanish forces—that he began to tinker with devises based on his
discovery. After months of bombardment and attacks by sea and land, the
Rock stood and along with it control of the gateway between the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. What if troops could be carried over
the fortress and landed with in it,
he wondered. Could his gas provide the
lift for such an undertaking?
He
began building models at Avignon in
November of 1782. His first construction
was a box-like chamber 3’ x 3’ x 4
out of a thin wood frame covered on the
sides and top with lightweight taffeta
cloth. He ignited some crumpled
paper under the box which quickly rose up in the air until it banged on the
ceiling. Joseph excitedly summoned his
younger brother from home to join him on his project, urging him to bring “a
supply of taffeta and cordage.”
The brothers built a new model three times as large which they tested outdoors in December. It floated for nearly 1.2 miles before landing and being destroyed by a frightened peasant.
The
brothers refined their invention for a formal first public display. Their new model was globular and constructed of sackcloth
lined with three layers of thin paper.
It had a capacity for 28,000
cubic feet of air and weighed about 500 pounds.
An invited audience, including dignitaries from the États
particuliers assembled at Annonay
on June 4, 1783 to witness flight of 1.2 mile reaching an altitude of 6,000
feet lasting 10 minutes. Officials
present naturally wrote enthusiastic reports to the government in Paris.
The
government equally naturally called them to Paris for further
demonstrations. Joseph, shy and clumsy
in society, sent Étienne to the capital to collaborate with wallpaper manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, for a full
scale model of the device were
calling a globe aérostatique and he named Aérostat Réveillon. The first test of the glorious new
device flew from the grounds of la Folie Titon near Réveillon’s home.
Because
of concern that the upper air might
be dangerous to humans, the King graciously offered two the loan of two condemned felons as passengers for the
next public demonstration. Étienne
demurred and elected to send aloft a duck
as sort of a control animal known to withstand heights, a rooster thought not to be capable of flying at the expected
altitude, and a sheep about the same weight as a man. The animals were suspended below the
balloon in a basket.
A
crowd of thousands gathered to watch the flight, including the King himself and
Marie Antoinette on the ground of Versailles. The flight lasted approximately eight minutes,
covered two miles, and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet before landing
safely.
After
the manned ascent test in October, it was time for the great unveiling of for an untethered manned flight. On November 21 Pilâtre de Rozier was again in the
basket, accompanied by the Marquis
d’Arlandes, an army officer.
They took off from the Château de
la Muette near to the Bois de Boulogne
and were carried for miles above Paris at altitudes of up to 3,000 feet for 25
minutes. The craft landed outside the city
wall between two picturesque
windmills with enough fuel left to travel four times as far. But embers
from the fire set fire to the edge of the envelope which Pilâtre had to beat
out with his coat. Despite
the harrowing landing, the voyage was a success, the talk of Paris for days,
and commemorated in numerous etchings and on commemorative plates.
A cheap commemorative plate for he common folk got the year wrong. Much more elaborate plates were produced for the elite.
The
King raised the Montgolfier to the nobility. Several subsequent flights were also
made. But just as it looked like a rosy
future for all concerned, fate intervened in two ways.
First,
Jacques Charles and brothers Anne-Jean and Nicolas-Louis Robert, were
simultaneously experimenting with balloons using hydrogen for lift. They flew
an unmanned demonstration in August 1783 and on December 1 over a thousand
people paid to watch Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert take off in La
Charlière, the first manned hydrogen balloon. That flight lasted over two hours and covered
over 22 miles.
The
French government concluded that hydrogen balloons were the future of viable
flight, and most subsequent energy
went into that. Hot air ballooning
remained a novelty, as it is to this
day.
The Montgolfier
returned to their paper business, which thrived and continues to this day. Étienne died in Switzerland in 1799 and Joseph at Balaruc-les-Bains in 1810.
Neither left children and the family business came into the hands of
other relatives.
Watching
the flight of the magnificent balloon festooned with his own image was one of
the last great triumphs of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Fate—in the form of the Paris Mob—would not be kind to them.
Pilâtre
de Rozier became a dedicated balloon
enthusiast and constructed his own.
He piloted several flights. But
on June 19, 1785 he and a companion, Pierre
Romain were killed trying to cross the English
Channel in a hybrid hot air-hydrogen
balloon—not a good idea considering the volatility of hydrogen around a flame. They were the first
known casualties in aviation.
De
Rozier’s companion on the first untethered flight, the Marquis d’Arlandes, like the King and Queen, suffered the
catastrophic separation of his head from his body during the Revolution.
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