They fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
Those daring young men in their flying machines.
My apologies for the parody. It does though capture the spirit of the Wonderful Machine Age. A time of daring do, a time when men and women pushed the boundaries of their world further and further. A time of rapid technological development.
We have always been envious of the birds. We’ve always wanted to be able to fly like them. Well, we still don’t fly like the birds do. We do, however, fly. And we do so with the greatest of ease in our marvelous flying machines.
Such was not always the case. The world’s first airline, the DELAG, was started a mere 106 years ago. The first powered, controlled, and sustained lighter than air flight took place in 1852. In 1874, Félix du Temple made the first successful heavier than air powered flight, although du Temple’s Monoplane was not completely self-powered. That feat would come in 1903 with the Wright brothers’ flight.
Myth aside, the history of flight began many centuries ago by attempting to imitate birds or riding aloft on kites. Flight via kite was generally more successful than was jumping from a tower in a bird suit and vigorously flapping manmade wings. Para-sailing is a popular sport today and can trace its roots back to those 6th century Chinese kite flyers, the first recorded one being the prisoner Yuan Huangtou.
However, if all we had available to us were flapping wings and kites, travel as we know it today would be much different. Certainly international travel would be. So lets fast forward to the 18th century in Europe, where in the latter half of 1783 a lot of hot air was occurring in France.
A momentous year was 1783. The Montgolfier brothers successfully demonstrated the feasibility of manned flight in a hot air balloon and Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers did the same in a hydrogen-filled balloon.
Suddenly ballooning became the rage and continues to this day as a sport, both hot air ballooning as well as the helium heads. In the early 20th century, ballooning was an especially popular sport in Britain. There balloons used coal gas for lift because it was readily available from the local gas works.
Of course, no sooner were hot air and hydrogen balloons flying about than people started to explore the possibility of dirigibles, or steerable balloons — what we today call airships. We will look at airships next week.
From 1783 onwards, balloons gave us our first true taste of flight, became useful in war to observe enemy troop movements and to defend against attack by enemy planes, and were of importance to the scientific community. High altitude scientific flights have given way to high altitude sporting flights and is a popular sport today. One such balloon in 2002 reached an altitude of 53 km/32.9 miles. And who hasn’t heard of the weather balloon, perhaps the most ubiquitous of scientific balloons, made über-famous as the reason for all of those UFO sightings. Can we spell R-O-S-W-E-L-L?
I have yet to take a flight on a balloon hot air or helium. It is on my list of things to do before I die. If I’m lucky there’ll be a storm and the balloon will be blown to Mysterious Island and I’ll meet Captain Nemo. One can only hope.
To some degree, balloons are the ugly step-sister in lighter-than-air flight. We retro-futurist writers love airships and seem to never give balloons a thought. Yet if it wasn’t for the balloon, we’d probably never had had the airship. After all, Count Zeppelin’s first flying experience was in an American Civil War observation balloon.
If you’ve gone ballooning, do consider telling us about your experience!
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Hey, if Mulder says it was a UFO then that’s good enough for me! Besides… what about the “Saqqara Bird”? How do you think the Egyptian’s built those pyramids without any air support?
Brilliant again, CW! Very informative. I remember seeing the model of Montgolfier brothers’ balloon at the London Science Museum.
I would add though that the man-kites in Asia were generally used as a form of execution (I saw some replicas when I was in China). Usually, prisoners were strapped to a kite and hurled off a cliff so that they might be ‘liberated’ (aka doomed). Yuan Huangtou suffered a similiar fate, survived the ‘flight’, and was later executed in a more exact manner. It all reminds a bit of the witch trials in a sense… different motive, but you were screwed nonetheless.
I know it was before the ‘machine age’ and would never have got off the ground, but I’m surprised there was no mention of Leonardo da Vinci and his “ornithopter”. There are also suggestions that the Nazca figures/lines might have been done via air balloons. Very interesting.
Ugly step-sister’s everywhere are going to be gunning for you now, CW! I, however, quite prefer the curve and elegance of the balloon over the cigar-shaped whale of the sky… 😉
I’ve never ‘ridden’ in a balloon, but I have worked as one of the ground crew. During my final months at university, I lived in a tent at the bottom of a farmer’s field. Once a month, the farmer’s friend would hold a champagne lunch for newlyweds in his balloon and this he would set up in that field. On the one occasion, I assisted him in setting up and getting everything ready. He had two balloons, one for a second photographer. Fascinating.
I wish you luck with your future balloon adventure… in light of the recent ‘Back to the Future’ reminiscence, perhaps a story of a balloon being swept out over the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ and going back in time… perhaps that was how those Nazca lines were done after all… 😉
Look forward to the next post!
LOL! an entertaining and informative response, as well. Yes, there is something really grand about a balloon. Perhaps it is the serenity of simply drifting along, instead of being powered. As you note, there is an elegance there. Although whales are one of my favorite creatures. 😉
There were bales of info I could have included. Leonardo, for example. My intention is to do several additional posts to cover other aspects of flight and our Renaissance man will probably make an appearance in one of those.
Yes, the kites were used for execution. Not unlike the French king’s order to use criminals as the first balloonists. The bad guys always have fun. 🙂
That is a neat idea about the balloon and the Bermuda Triangle. Hm.
What I love about hot air balloons are the colors of the balloon. I’ve been to the beginning of a hot air balloon race. Watching them being filled and displaying their marvelous designs is awesome in the true sense of the word. When they take flight and become small dots of color in the sky, it makes one feel like a kid holding onto a helium balloon and letting go. There is a moment of disappointment in the loss of a possession, but then watching it take flight and wondering where it might end up fills one’s imagination. Thanks for this post because as much of a hassle it is in dealing with airports and airlines, traveling by air is something that has captured my imagination for a long time.
Flying is pretty amazing when you think about it. We are a species that truly transcends our limitations.