Balloons...Who Knew pt. 1

This semester I am working as a teaching assistant for a class about the history of aviation. Now, I like planes as much as any person, I mean who doesn't like planes! But I really have no idea about their history or the history of flight. To try and make up for this I am currently reading various books on aviation, beginning with the history of hot air balloons.

The topic of balloons is actually very interesting! The assigned book for the class is Falling Upwards by Richard Holmes. It is a very readable book, filled with stories and anecdotes beginning with the first barely successful flights of sacs filled with hot air and going all the way up until...actually I haven't yet finished the book so I don't know how it ends! But I do have some interesting things from what I have read so far, things I never knew existed!

The first hot air balloon was created by Joseph Michelle and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier.

They were a pair of French brothers who were in the exceedingly interesting business of making paper. In June of 1783 they put their prowess with paper to good use and turned some of this simple product into the very first hot air balloon. That's right, the first hot air balloon, complete with open flame, was made out of flimsy paper.
Their flight kicked off an air race in France, triggering the transition from air to gas balloons (hydrogen mostly). After the first successful floating of large balloons the phenomenon took off (get it). The balloons got bigger, most elaborate and would go higher and float longer. It was not an endeavour without challenges or dangers. New innovations, done in the name of science, caused many crashes or explosions. One such mishap occurred with a renowned French balloonist named Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier. He tried to invent a type of dual balloon that combined a hot air component below a hydrogen ballon. Now for anyone who knows anything about hydrogen, when it is mixed with oxygen and placed over and open flame it tends to react badly. Needless to say this innovator did not last very long in the air.

The balloonist that I found the most interesting in this novel was actually a woman named Sophie Blanchard. This woman sounds like she was completely fearless! She was the wife (the young wife)

Sophie Blanchard standing in her small basket

of a ballooning pioneer named Jean-Pierre Blanchard. She was introduced to ballooning by her husband and continued after he died. She was the first woman to work as a professional balloonist! Her employer? Napoleon Bonaparte! He saw some of her exploits (which included night ballooning, aerial fireworks displays, skydiving and standing in a basket the size of a champagne bucket), and promoted her to the role of Aeronaut of the Official Festivals.  She had many close calls, including losing consciousness on many occasions, crashing her balloon in a marsh and almost drowning and almost freezing to death due to how high she floated. Unfortunately, her illustrious career ended when some fireworks ignited the gas in her balloon. It crashed into the roof of a house. The impact didn't kill her, but she fell out of the basket onto the roof, and then slid off to her death.  

One of the most interesting things that I learned from the novel was how hot air balloons were used in the American Civil War. This was the first time two opposing armies used an air force during battle. Balloons were more commonly used by the Union army as a way to scout enemy movements before and during battles. The Aeronaut (Balloon pilot) would use a small telescope or binoculars to track the armies movements and relay messages to the union generals. The Confederate army also used balloons. Most famously, because the army did not have as much money as the Union, the south supposedly constructed a small balloon made out of beautiful silk dresses donated by the belles of Dixie. This balloon, known as Gazelle, was actually just made out of silk dress material premade dresses. The below video explains more about it's use in the war!

This is only part one of a two part blog post. I am going to keep reading, and next week post about how the novel ends. Stay tuned for some more interesting facts about balloons!