Hot Air Balloons

In 1783, the first hot air balloon was set to fly over the heads of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and
the French court in Versailles. Like monkeys in space, this odd assortment of animals was chosen
to test the effects of flight. Sheep, thought to be similar to people, would show the effects of
altitude on a land dweller, while ducks and roosters, which could already fly (albeit at different
heights), would act as controls in the experiment. The balloon flew on a tether for 8 minutes, rising
1500 feet into the air and traveling 2 miles before being brought safely to the ground. The animals
were unharmed.

When it came time to choose a pilot for the first hot air balloon flight, Louis XVI didnt want to be
responsible for potential fatalities, so he figured: Hey, condemned criminals are going to die
anyway, lets have them fly the balloon. Luckily, he was talked out of the idea. Instead, scientist
Jean-Franois Piltre De Rozier (above) and aristocrat Franois Laurent dArlandes were chosen to
fly the balloon. On November 21, 1783, the men flew for 20 minutes, becoming the first people to
experience sustained flight.

In 1794, during the Battle of Fleurus in the French Revolution, a balloon called Entreprenant was
flown for aerial observation to suss out enemy positions during combat. The balloon, which was
tethered, flew for 9 hours. During this time, the aeronaut wrote down the movement of Austrian
troops and dropped the dispatches to the ground. Its unclear whether the dispatches helped all
that muchthe generals were tactfully quiet on the matterbut the French did win the battle.

Imagine floating thousands of feet above the earth with nothing between you and the ground but
glass. This is what passengers experienced when Christian Brown debuted his glass-bottom hot air
balloon at the 2010 Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. Brown told the British press the flight was
terrifying and trial flights had ended with passengers shrieking and screaming in fear. Theres
talk of opening the glass-bottom balloon to the public. Sound fun?