Hot air balloon: the history
In the Chinese history unmanned
hot air balloons are popular. Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han kingdom, in the Three Kingdoms era (220–80 AD) used
hot air balloon lanterns for military signaling. These lanterns are known as Kongming lanterns. The first documented unmanned
balloon flight in Europe was demonstrated by Bartolomeu de Gusmão. On August 8, 1709, in Lisbon, he succeeded to lift a balloon full of hot air about 4.5 meters above the ground in front of King John V and the Portuguese court. On the 19th September 1783 Pilatre De Rozier launched the first hot air balloon called 'Aerostat Reveillon'. These was the first attempt to loaded passengers on the balloon and the onboard were a sheep, a duck and a rooster , the balloon was able to stay in the air for 15 minutes before crashing back to the ground.
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| Kongming lantern |
First manned flight
The oldest flight technology that successfully carrying human is
hot air balloon and the first hot air balloon flight was performed in Paris,France, by
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier a young physician and
François Laurent d'Arlandes an
army officer
on
Nov 21, 1783, using hot air balloon created by Montgolfier brothers. They flew for about 3,000 feet (910 m) above the surface and a distance of 9 kilometers.that flight begin the history of manned hot air balloon flight and ever since this human-carrying flight technology developed very rapidly. In August 1932 Swiss scientist named Auguste Piccard was the first to set a record of a manned flight to the Stratosphere. He reached a height of 52,498 feet. In the next couple of years, altitude records continued to be set and broken every couple of months - the race was on to see who get reach the highest point in a hot air balloon.
In 1935 a new altitude record was set and the record remained unbroken for the next 20 years. The balloon Explorer 2, a helium gas model reached an altitude of 72,395 feet (13.7 miles), For the first time in history. But in 1960 The Altitude record was broken when Captain Joe Kittinger made a parachute jump from a balloon that was at a height of 102,000 feet. The balloon broke the existing altitude record and Captain Kittinger, the high altitude parachute jump record.
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| Montgolfier brothers' balloon |
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| Montgolfier brothers' balloon flight |
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| Montgolfier brothers' balloon |
Today Hot air balloon
Modern
hot air balloons, were pioneered by Ed Yost with an onboard heat source in the beginning 1950s. His work resulted in his first successful
hot air balloons flight, on October 22, 1960 The first modern hot air balloon to be built in the United Kingdom was the Bristol Belle in 1967. Today, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation.
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| Modern Hot Air Balloon flight |
