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The brothers, Joseph Michel Montgolfier (26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) are the inventors of the montgolfière, or hot air balloon. The lift off was in Juni 1783
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[edit] Early years
The brothers were born into a family of paper manufacturers in Annonay, in the Ardèche, south of Lyon, France. Pierre Montgolfier (1700-1793), established his eldest son Raymond (1730-1772) as his successor, but there seem to have been another fifteen children baptized.
Joseph possessed a typical inventor's temperament -- a maverick and dreamer but impractical in terms of business and personal affairs. Clever and highly inventive by nature, he was rebellious towards his formal education -- twice running away from school. Nonetheless, his natural curiosity led him to a very successful self-education in the then emerging physical sciences.
Étienne (as Jacques-Étienne was more generally known) had a much more even and businesslike temperament than Joseph. He was initially sent to Paris to train as an architect. However, after the sudden and unexpected death of Raymond in 1772, he was recalled to Annonay to run the family business.
[edit] Initial experiments
When Joseph observed laundry drying over a fire incidentally form pockets that billowed upwards, he got inspiration.
Joseph made his first experiments in November of 1782. Early December 1782, Joseph repeated his experiment in a garden near the family homestead with his entire family as witness. On this occasion, a box-like balloon lifted to some 20 meters (70 ft) in the air and remained aloft for a full minute.
The two brothers then set about building a contraption three times larger in scale (27 times larger in volume). The lifting force was so great that they lost control of their craft on its very first test flight on 14 December 1782. The device floated nearly 2 kilometres (about 1.2 mi).
[edit] Public demonstrations
Given these initial successes, the brothers decided to make a public demonstration of a balloon in order to establish their claim to its invention. They constructed a globe-shaped balloon of sackcloth with three thin layers of paper inside. The envelope could contain nearly 790 m3 (28,000 cubic feet) of air and weighed 225 kg (500 lb). It was constructed of four pieces (the dome and three lateral bands), and held together by some 1,800 buttons. A reinforcing "fish net" of cord covered the outside of the envelope.
On 4 June 1783 they flew this craft as their first public demonstration at Annonay in front of a group of dignitaries from the Etats particulars. Its flight covered 2 km (1.2 mi), lasted 10 minutes, and had an estimated altitude of 1,600 - 2,000 m (5,200 - 6,600 ft).
Etienne went to the capital Paris to make further demonstrations on June the 14th and to solidify the brothers' claim to the invention of flight. Etienne had studied in Paris and was much more at home with the dress and habits of the city. The journalist Louis Sébastien Mercier writes he was dressed in black most of the time. Joseph, given his unkempt appearance and shyness, remained with the family.
In collaboration with the successful wallpaper manufacturer, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, Etienne constructed a 37,500 cubic foot envelope of taffeta coated with varnish. The balloon was covered in bright colours and flourishes to distinguish it from the rather plain design of the Charles balloons.
On 19 September 1783 the Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first living beings in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep, a duck and a rooster. This demonstration was performed before a huge crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette. Also Gustav III and Benjamin Franklin seem to have been watching the spectacle. The flight lasted approximately 8 minutes, covered 2 miles, and obtained an altitude of about 1500 feet. The flight would have been longer but the craft was unstable. It tipped wildly just after launch which allowed a considerable amount of hot air to spill from the mouth. The animals survived the trip unharmed, in spite of the rumour.
[edit] Human flight
With the successful demonstration at Versailles, and again in collaboration with Réveillon, Etienne started construction of a 60,000 cubic foot balloon for the purpose of making flights with humans. The craft was decorated with azure blue wallpaper and was 75 feet tall and 46 feet in diameter.
The balloon was tested in tethered flights later in 1783 on 15, 17 and 19 October. At different times, Etienne and Pilâtre de Rozier on board. On occasion, these tethered flights reached the limits of the 324 foot long retaining ropes.
On 21 November 1783, the first free flight was made by Pilâtre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes, who flew aloft for 25 minutes about 100 metres above Paris for a distance of nine kilometres. The flight began close to Bois de Boulogne, in the courtyard of the Château de la Muette in the western outskirts of Paris. It landed between the windmills on the Butte-aux-Cailles. Enough fuel remained on board at the end of the flight to have allowed the balloon to fly four to five times as far. However, burning embers from the fire were scorching the balloon fabric and had to be daubed out with sponges. Thus the pilots decided to land as soon as they were over open countryside.
The ascensions made a sensation. Numerous engravings commemorated the events. Chairs were designed with balloon backs, mantel clocks were produced in enamel, gilt-bronze replicas set with a dial in the balloon. It was possible to buy a chandelier in the shape of a Montgolfier balloon or specially decorated crockery.
[edit] Following years
In 1766, the British scientist Henry Cavendish had discovered hydrogen gas, by adding sulphuric acid to iron, tin, or zinc shavings. The development of gas balloons proceeded almost in parallel with the work of the Montgolfiers. This work was led by Messr. Charles. Work on each type of balloon was spurred on by the knowledge that there was a competing group and alternative technology.
Hydrogen balloons became the predominant technology. Jacques Charles lifted in a balloon filled with hydrogen on December, 1st 1783. Joseph Montgolfier was one of six passengers on a flight on 19 January 1784, with a huge Montgolfier balloon Le Flesselles launched from Lyon. It had a volume of approximately 23,000 m³, over 10 times that of the first flight, but only flew a short distance. The first crossing of the English Channel on 7 January 1785 was done by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries.
[edit] Competing claims
Some claim that the hot air balloon was actually invented some 74 years earlier by the portuguese priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão [1]. A description of his invention was published in 1709, in Vienna, and another one that was lost was found in the Vatican (circa 1917) [2]. However, this claim is not generally recognized by aviation historians outside the Portuguese speaking community, in particular the FAI.
[edit] References
- Schama, S. (1989) Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution, p 123-31.
- ^ Reis, Fernando. Bartolomeu de Gusmão. Ciência em Portugal. Centro Virtual Camões in Portuguese
- ^ Gusmao, Bartolomeu de. Reproduction fac-similé d'un dessin à la plume de sa description et de la pétition addressée au Jean V. (de Portugal) en langue latine et en écriture contemporaine (1709) retrouvés récemment dans les archives du Vatican du célèbre aéronef de Bartholomeu Lourenco de Gusmão "l'homme volant" portugais, né au Brésil (1685-1724) précurseur des navigateurs aériens et premier inventeur des aérostats. 1917 (Lausanne : Impr. Réunies S. A..)in French and Latin
[edit] Revival of the hot air balloon
Balloons using heated air rather than lighter-than-air gasses did not return until the 1960s, when Ed Yost improved the safety of the classic Montgolfier design by using ripstop nylon for the envelope and propane gas as the burner fuel.
