II.

History

In 1783 two French brothers, Jacques Étienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier, who were wealthy papermakers in Annonay, sent up a balloon filled with hot air. In the same year the French physicist, chemist, and aeronaut Jacques Alexandre César Charles released one filled with hydrogen, which made a successful two-hour flight, covering 43 km (27 mi). The same year also marked the first balloon ascent by human beings, when the French physicist Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier made flights near Paris, first in a captive balloon and later in one that was free. A year later the first balloon ascent in Britain was made, by a French diplomat. In 1785 the French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard, accompanied by John Jeffries, an American, made the first balloon crossing of the English Channel. The first free balloon ascent in America was made at Philadelphia on January 9, 1793. In 1836 The Great Balloon of Nassau, of 2,410 cubic m (85,000 cu ft) capacity, sailed 800 km (500 mi) from London to Weilburg, Germany, in 18 hours. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, balloons were used for military observation by the armies of both nations, and the French minister Léon Gambetta made a dramatic escape from the besieged city of Paris by balloon. A long-standing distance record for the flight of manned balloons was set in 1914, when the balloon Berliner travelled from Bitterfeld in Germany to Perm in Russia, some 3,052 km (1,897 mi). Armies in World War I made extensive use of balloons, especially for military observation. Interest in ballooning as a sport was stimulated by the Gordon Bennett Balloon Trophy Races. The competition was held annually, except during World War I, from 1906, when the American journalist James Gordon Bennett donated the trophy, to the start of World War II, when the races were discontinued.

Sports ballooning has become popular around the world, using hot-air balloons that are kept aloft with butane or propane burners. Such balloons are also ideal for flights over wildlife reserves.

Ascents to great heights have been made by a number of aeronauts in balloons. In 1931 the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard ascended into the stratosphere in a spherical, airtight, metal cabin suspended from a specially constructed, hydrogen-filled balloon of 14,000 cubic m (46,000 cu ft) capacity, reaching an altitude of 15,781 m (51,793 ft). The following year he reached 16,507 m (54,156 ft). In 1935, two US Army captains, Orvil Anderson and Albert William Stevens, ascended to 22,080 m (72,440 ft).

In August 1957, Major David Simons, a US Air Force surgeon, ascended to about 31,110 m (102,000 ft), remained in the air 32 hours, and drifted 652 km (405 mi) from his take-off point. The flight was designed to chart the reactions of humans at high altitudes. On August 27, 1960, Captain Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a polyethylene plastic balloon at 31,354 m (102,870 ft), setting a new altitude record for balloon flight and a new record for parachute descent. On May 4, 1961, the Americans Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather set a record of 34,679 m (113,775 ft) on a flight launched from a US Navy aircraft carrier.

The first transatlantic balloon flight ended on August 17, 1978, after setting a distance record of 5,000 km (3,108 mi) and an endurance record of 137 hours 6 minutes. The helium-filled Double Eagle II, manned by the American businessmen Ben Abruzzo, Max L. Anderson, and Larry Newman, took off from Presque Isle, Maine, on August 11 and landed in Miserey, France. The first hot-air balloon flight across the Atlantic was made in 1987 by the Virgin Atlantic Flyer, flown by Richard Branson and Per Lundstrand. The endurance record was broken by two Americans, Troy Bradley and Ben Abruzzo's son Richard, who took off from Bangor, Maine, on September 15, 1992. In the world's first transatlantic race, they were blown off course and landed near Fès, Morocco, 146 hours later. Kittinger made the first solo transatlantic crossing when he flew his helium-filled Rosie O'Grady's 5,690 km (3,535 mi) from Caribou, Maine, to the Italian Riviera near Savona, September 14-18, 1984.

In March 1999 Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones succeeded in circling the globe in their helium/hot air balloon Breitling Orbiter 3. As well as becoming the first balloonists to circumnavigate the Earth, they also set new records for the longest continuous balloon flight measured in both time and distance, at 46,759 km (29,055 mi) travelled in 19 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes. The Swiss-born Piccard was son of the oceanic explorer Jacques Piccard and grandson of the balloonist Auguste Piccard but was not a professional balloonist; Jones was a balloon flying instructor.

In July 2002 the American millionaire Steve Fossett became, on his sixth attempt, the first solo balloonist to circumnavigate the globe, after spending over 13 days in the air. His helium/hot air balloon, Spirit of Freedom, reached speeds of almost 322 km/h (200 mph) during the 34,000 km (22,100 m) journey. In the same effort Fossett broke his own 1998 world record for the longest distance travelled alone by a balloonist. Another ballooning record was set in November 2005, when the Indian businessman and aviator Vijaypat Singhania ascended 21,290.89 m (69,852 ft) in a specially designed hot air balloon, fitted with a pressurized cabin attached to the 48.8 m (160 ft)-high balloon.