19th Century Airships and Balloons

In the 1800s, we saw advances in ballooning, subsequent to the flight of the Montgolfier
in 1783. Thus, it was popular all over the world by mid century. Jean-Pierre Blanchard
was famous for his balloon flights all over Europe and America even though he failed at
innumerable attempts to create the ornithopter. In 1785, John-Pierre with John Jeffries,
a physician crossed the English Channel. They also did the exhibition ascent in
Philadelphia in 1793, no less than George Washington was there to witness the event.

John Wise is the first balloonist in America and had the privilege of being trained by
Jean-Pierre. John Wise went on to train many others in America. This spurred the
interest of the whole of America in ballooning. Jean-Pierre died in an experimental
parachute jump from his balloon in 1809. During the civil war, the four balloons were
placed in strategic places to enable to observe below and communicate telegraphically
with the rest of the balloons. The confederacy realized the potential of ballooning for
reconnaissance; they tried to put up a program but never succeeded. To make the
balloon an observation area is Thaddeus Lowe’s idea and it was used as a pivot in
telegraph mail between the White House and the balloon.

Balloons with propellers were developed after Jean-Pierre and John Jeffries crossing of
the English Channel. The English Channel also became famous and found its mark in the
history of aviation.

The art of aerial photography high up in a balloon was credited to Felix Tournachon
(Nadar) of France. A whole photographic laboratory was even brought on a huge
balloon. Felix was more known during the siege in the year 1870, where he ballooned
mail and passengers out of Paris.

During the end of the 19th century, an attempt was made to balloon pass the North Pole.
Attempt was made July 11, 1897 by Salomon August Andree and two others, launching
from Spitzbergen. The trio never came back until an expedition in 1930 found their
frozen bodies. It was realized that the balloon crashed on ice and that they froze while
attempting to walk back to civilization.

Propeller systems for balloons enabled a balloon to be controlled to where it has to go.
Many engineers saw it fit to put propellers and started work right away. This gave birth
to the dirigible. First successful flight was on September 24, 1852. Henri Giffard
conceptualized the cigar shaped design. It is filled with hydrogen and possesses a steam
engine. As expected, it runs at gentle speeds of 5 miles per hour.

Thaddeus Lowe built the initial balloons that were used for observation during the Civil
War at Virgina in Fair Oaks. The LZ4 was Germany’s pride but during an attempt to break
an endurance record it got destroyed. During this Civil War, an army general from
Germany known as Ferdinand von Zeppelin had noticed the extensive use of balloons.
The Count von Zeppelin along with chief engineer Ludwig Durr, created a 420-feet
airship, it is designed to carry multitudes of people.

A number of victorious dirigible flights happened towards the end of the 1880s. This
moved the Germans to thinking of the possibility of using the airship as a means of
traveling. Experiments went on with two models, one with gasoline engine and the
other covered with aluminum sheet. Unfortunately, both crashed while doing test
flights in 1897.

PPPPP
Word Count 568