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French scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier famously launched the first hot air balloon carrying a duck, a sheep, and a cockerel. The balloon is given a lift by hot air but also has a compartment of helium or hydrogen in the top of the balloon. The flight lasted for 15 minutes.
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Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes fly from Paris in a ‘hot air’ balloon created out of paper-lined cloth by wealthy brothers and papermakers Jacques Étienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier -
Jean-Pierre Blanchard completed the first balloon flight in North America, flying from Philadelphia to Gloucester County, New Jersey.
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The Great Balloon of Nassau (85,000 cubic ft in size) was flown by UK balloon enthusiast Charles Green 500 mi from London to Weilburg in Germany in 18 hours. -
Another first in the history of hot air balloons when they were used for military observation during Franco-Prussian War. A French Minister escapes the war on a Paris ballon. -
Interest in ballooning as a sport grew thanks to the annual Gordon Bennett Balloon Trophy Races. Founded by American journalist James Gordon Bennett when a group of hydrogen gas balloons flew from Paris, it first took place in 1906, pausing only for World War II and continues today. -
The Berliner hot air balloon flew 3,052 km from Bitter field in Germany to Perm in Russia.
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Both sides used balloons for military observation during the war from 1914 to 1918.
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Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard flew to the Stratosphere at 51,793 ft in a metal cabin carried by a hydrogen gas balloon. The next year he reached 54,156 ft.
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Edward Yost invented a propane burner that changes ballooning from gas power to hot air.
A hot air balloon using the burner successfully flew in Nebraska, USA. -
After several successful attempts to better Auguste Piccard’s record by others, Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather achieved an incredible 113,775 ft. -
The 1970s and 80s see the development of new synthetic materials and lighter burners, allowing ballooning to become a popular modern sport and marking another new age in the history of hot air balloons.