He had instantly discovered the properties of hot air, realising that it took on different properties to cold air, and could perhaps be harnessed to produce levitation in paper or fabric. He later confirmed this find by observing his wife’s drying blouse becoming inflated above the fire-place. Writing to his brother Jacques he poured out the excitement of his discovery: “Bring me some taffeta cloth and cordage, tout de suite, and you will see one of the most incredible sights in the world!” Jacques-Étienne’s response to dashing back to the small French town to witness a bit of cloth floating up a chimney is not recorded. But it would still require a robust leap of both imagination and materials science if they were going to adopt this discovery into fulfilling human flight.
Initially they designed small paper balloons, and used smoke generated from burnt wool, straw and hay, incorrectly surmising that the smoke provided the balloon’s airborne lift. Although it clearly did not, as Sadler knew well, it did nevertheless serve to provide a sealing agent to their otherwise porous balloon made of thin paper.
Prior to the first launch containing human cargo, the Montgolfiers designed a giant 108-foot-wide balloon and placed it above a straw furnace in the town square at Annonay. As its name implies, Annonay was an anonymous parochial town to be chosen for such a world changing event. But it was the Montgolfiers’ hometown, and the venue for this landmark first flight is annually celebrated today on the Place des Cordeliers where an obelisk stands marking the event. To this day, the Montgolfiers are still commemorated in the French word for a hot air balloon: une montgolfière.
On 4 June 1783 in what were perfect weather conditions for a hot air balloon launch, preparations began for an unmanned ascent. The scale was certainly ambitious, the sphere measuring 110 feet in diameter and weighing almost a quarter of a ton. The French astronomer Nicolas Camille recorded the event (but ten years afterwards), noting “it appeared only a covering of cloth, lined inside with paper - a kind of 35-foot high sack.” As the hot air flowed into the sack, the shape it formed began to please Camille as “it grew ever larger in front of the eyes of the spectators and took a beautiful form, stretching inside on all sides and struggled to escape.” The balloon is generally considered to have reached a height of around two thousand metres. What is undisputed is that it was the first public hot air balloon flight - though the absence of passengers or cargo ensured ascent was much easier than with a manned flight.
With an empty basket, the launch occurred quickly when eight rope-holding Frenchmen struggling to restrain the balloon from lifting off were given a signal to release their grip; being Frenchmen they were probably just distracted by a prostitute walking past. (In an increasing politically correct world, thank goodness we’ll always have our wonderful neighbours the French as a legitimate comedy target.)
It landed just over an hour later, but the short distance travelled of just two kilometres is testimony to the almost non-existent breeze that day. Even so, the winds of scientific debate were blowing a gale, since many traditional scientists refused to believe this was possible within the rational laws of explained science. In order to fly, they argued, a balloon must have sufficient lighter-than-air gas such as recently discovered hydrogen. The balloon may have only flown two kilometres in an hour, but news was still travelling even slower; news of the achievement reaching Paris the next day.
On 19 September 1783 a paper balloon took-off in Versailles carrying three passengers. A sheep, a duck and a rooster all flew in the presence of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the entire French court. The balloon was suitably christened Le Réveillon after Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, the owner of a wallpaper business that enjoyed royal patronage and which provided the material for the construction of the balloon’s entire envelope. Damaged by a rip in the wallpaper, and with its basket broken after colliding with treetops, the balloon gently floated to earth barely ten minutes after take-off, landing in the suburb of Vaucresson with its animal cargo physically intact.
It was thought that if a small mammal such as a sheep could breathe sufficient oxygen to survive at such altitudes, then so surely could much bigger mammals, including human beings. The balloon basket, however, would certainly need some serious cleaning before a member of the French aristocracy stepped into it as it had been used to fly very terrified livestock.
And so, in the presence of Louis XVI the first attempt was made to put a human into the air on 21 November 1783. Initially the French king decreed that two condemned prisoners should be trialled as the first people to fly. Although the prisoners were informed they would be given a royal pardon if (salient detail coming up) “IF they survived”, they did not fly. Instead 26-year-old physics teacher and balloon-experimenter Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier petitioned the monarch into allowing suitable volunteers from the scientific community to lead the way. Relieved that they had been spared the unknown and potentially deadly outcome of the balloon flight, the condemned prisoners were then swiftly despatched to the gallows - a fairly short-lived relief, then.
The involvement of Rozier’s scientific mind was crucial, as he concluded, perhaps somewhat illogically to an outsider, that to in order to raise more weight off the ground, the balloon would have to carry more weight. Hence he added an iron fire basket inside the balloon. This additional weight, alongside the necessary fuel, would indeed appear illogical - not to mention the increased danger of an open furnace in a balloon manufactured from paper. But the increased air temperature provided greater lifting propulsion, and also some slight control in the balloon’s flight path: i.e. lob more straw on the fire to go higher and maintain a flight path. Rozier undertook several short test flights, during which he trialled various fuels for the fire, eventually concluding that cloth soaked in alcohol was the best performer.
That day a huge seventy-foot circumference inflated “gas ball” was lifted by a cumbersome straw-burning stove off the manicured lawns of the Château de la Muette, a few miles west of the French capital. The brightly coloured orb was piloted by the Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilâtre de Rozier. Fortunately the weather was calm and conditions serene. Or they were when the flight eventually took off, Rozier having the foresight to cancel an early flight due to adverse weather conditions. After ascending to an altitude estimated at around 900 metres, the balloon landed without incident at the Butte-aux-Cailles nearly nine kilometres away after half an hour in the air.
The first French manned flight (Library of Congress, Washington DC)
Rozier’s bonne chance did eventually run out, as it did for most of the original aeronauts with the notable exception of Sadler, when on 15 June 1785 his balloon suddenly lost gas and altitude, and crashed to the ground near Boulogne on the northern French coast. Alongside him was Pierre Romain who also perished in the crash, rendering these the very first aviation deaths.
It is worth recalling that the balloon, powering into the hitherto unknown skies where monsters could roam and oxygen not exist, was manufactured out of paper, hovering a few feet above the stove. After all, that was the Montgolfiers’ business - they manufactured paper - and hence it was likely a publicity stunt for their company, in much the same way that it is possible to spot a balloon in today’s dawn or dusk skyline emblazoned with the word Virgin.
Although the Montgolfier brothers are forever destined to enjoy pioneering status, and their own Trivial Pursuit answer, only one of them ever ascended in a balloon - and he only did that once.
***
According to the stereotype, Frenchmen are over-amorous and obsessed with cherchez la femme. This is an obsession somewhat paradoxically compromised by their disinclination towards using mouthwash.
This cartoon image of a typical Frenchman is fanned by Pepé Le Pew, the damagingly amorous fictional French skunk, constantly causing a stink with the beautiful ladies. Non-fictional Frenchmen do have a proclivity for liking the ladies too, of course, and that includes fighting for their attenti
ons above the Paris skyline.
Real life Frenchmen Messieurs de Grandpré and Le Pique fought for the hand of Mademoiselle Tirevit in the skies above Paris on 3 May 1808, by conducting a duel in a hydrogen balloon.
The contemporary press described Mademoiselle Tirevit as “a celebrated opera dancer” who “was kept by Monsieur Grandpré but had been discovered in an intrigue with Monsieur Le Pique”. Nice euphemism ‘intrigue’. Presumably prompting a fit of pique - Le Pique having a fit.
Pistols were to be drawn at dawn, once they had gone through the rigmarole of launching twin hydrogen balloons above Paris one morning. Accompanied by their seconds, the aeronautical duellers rendezvoused in a field on the Parisian outskirts “to quarrel over Mademoiselle Tirevit”.
Stymied by the practical difficulties of obtaining two balloons for a duel, the pair allowed a brief flowering of common sense in the otherwise arid desert of sense, and put back the duel for a month in order for the balloons to be sourced. They were both described as “elevated minds”, but surely only in a literal sense.
A small Parisian crowd gathered on the duel day in a field adjoining the Tuilleries, reportedly expecting the novelty of a balloon race - not a deadly death match. Blunderbusses rather than pistols were selected for the unique duelling conditions, pistols decreed to be ineffectual at such range. Then at 9am both balloons were launched when the duelling duo’s seconds cut the tethering ropes simultaneously. The globes drifted no more than eighty metres apart from each other. Once they had climbed to an altitude of 900 metres, Monsieur Le Pique “fired his piece ineffectively” - as Mademoiselle Tirevit could no doubt regularly testify.
Having spent his one shot, Le Pique could now only await his fate as a huge floating target. But his adversary did not leave him waiting for long, returning fire almost instantly and bursting his balloon. Consequently Monsieur Le Pique and his unfortunate second descended rather too swiftly and were both described as “dashed to pieces” on a house roof below. The victorious Monsieur Grandpré and his second then made a gentler and safe descent back to earth.
It was almost certainly the very first aerial duel, followed a few seconds later by the first aerial murder. It was one of several number ones for French aeronautics, since the French were also the first to harness the balloon for effective military use.
***
The Arc de Triomphe was, of course, built to celebrate achievements in France’s somewhat bellicose history. By the approaching autumn of 1870 France was fighting a rearguard action in its war with Prussia, and Paris was ominously encircled by Prussian troops. A Parisian aeronaut ascended out of the city, immediately picking up a strong air current which flew him over Prussian camps where he dropped French propaganda leaflets.
On subsequent trips, Monsieur Jules Duruof carried a basket of homing pigeons. Scribbled notes listing the position of the Prussian lines, and estimates of their man and fire power were then despatched via the carrier pigeons’ legs back to the French HQ. Within days of this reconnaissance accomplishment two of the city’s principal train stations, the Gare d’Orléans and the present-day Eurostar terminal Gare du Nord, were put to work as improvised balloon factories - their high-domed roofs proving ideal for the large spaces required by hot air balloon production. And since the Prussians had excelled at sabotage, there were no trains left to disrupt. Which was fortunate, as even First Great Western have yet to use that old chestnut excuse: “We regret the cancellation of the 7.43 to Didcot Parkway - this has been caused by unscheduled hot air balloon manufacture to spy on troop positions in the Franco-Prussian War.” It’s only a matter of time though - you see. Using cheap cotton cloth, not the most impermeable of fabrics for containing hot air, over fifty balloons were soon ready for despatch over the Prussian lines in vital reconnaissance missions. Not all were successful, and one manned balloon accomplished the alarming feat of flying fully 2,000 miles until it landed in decidedly colder Norway.
Not all of the balloons managed to contain sufficient hot air to reach a safe altitude, and enemy riflemen picked off some of them, most notably shooting the eminent French politician Léon Gambetta through the hand while he hurriedly hurled ballast over the side of his balloon’s basket, before he gained sufficient height momentum to escape and land safely back in Paris. As for Duruof, he survived until 1899, despite crashing - with his wife - in September 1874 into the North Sea near Grimsby, where he was fortuitously rescued.
Duruof splashes down in the North Sea (Library of Congress, Washington DC)
So important was the French aerial assault that the world’s first anti-aircraft guns were created by the Prussians - crude improvisations that fired, with moderate success, at the large floating targets. Over two million letters were estimated to have left Paris breaching the siege, and providing vital communication to the outside world and other divisions of the French Army. Around 500 carrier pigeons successfully returned to base after being released from the balloons high above the Prussian lines.
***
Sadler is unlikely to have had access to any of the pioneering work being done in France in 1773-74, and it is remarkable that he was working on two entirely different balloon mechanisms simultaneously - akin to the Wright Brothers inventing an aeroplane and a helicopter in the same year. (Though, to be painfully fair, the French invented both a few months before Sadler.) Sadler was experimenting and producing coal gas, creating hydrogen, while simultaneously inventing his own highly efficient hot air balloon with a stove mechanism pivotal to controlling the balloon’s propulsion. He was also adding crucial vents and values to the balloon, enabling the beast to be controlled rather than blindly rolling the dice of fate when it came to landings, which Montgolfier and others certainly did.
7 JANUARY 1785: FRENCH FARCE - THE RACE TO CROSS THE CHANNEL
Disappointment and setbacks were many in the pioneering days of aerostation, but if a man’s character is judged on his reaction to adversity, then Sadler’s personality test would score highly in this category. Having invested £500 of eighteenth-century money on building and equipping a balloon for this specific purpose, he was reported “having worked day and night” on the project of being the first to fly across the English Channel.
However not even Sadler could not beat the English winter weather. Setting off for Dover at Christmas 1784, Sadler found that his barge was literally frozen en route from Oxford to London in a prolonged cold spell. By the time a sufficient thaw had occurred to let him reach the capital, Sadler discovered the varnish on the silk balloon envelope had reacted with the ice and formed a substance akin to glue, rendering the expensive globe practically useless. Even the greatest men in history cannot overcome the British weather.
Upon leaving London for Dover the next day, news reached him that the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard had already crossed the finishing line and claimed victory for France on 7 January 1785. As if an illustration was needed to underscore how dangerous pioneering ballooning could be, Blanchard, as well as several other runners and riders in the race to be the first to fly the Channel, were all subsequently killed in later ballooning accidents.
Blanchard’s route to the title was predictably unstraightforward. He also displayed a characteristic unwillingness to share the credit with his co-pilot.
Establishing base camp in Dover Castle in early January 1785, Blanchard and his flying partner, benefactor and sponsor Dr. John Jefferies, set about planning their attempt at flying across the Channel. Jefferies, an American medical doctor based in Britain, maintained a strong interest in meteorology and planned to take measuring instruments on the flight. But Blanchard was against such an imposition. And Blanchard had form in this area, once having thrown overboard the scientific instruments of his previous co-pilot, Dr. John Sheldon.
Paying for the flight also proved to be no guarantee of a seat for Jefferies. Blanchard locked himself in the castle and intended to launch himself s
olo over the Channel the next day. A legitimately outraged Jefferies was having none of this Gallic petulance, and he arrived at the castle in uncompromising mood and with a private gang of mercenaries. Dangling a purse bulging with cash helped persuade the castle governor to see Jefferies’ side of the dispute - and Blanchard was restrained from his credit-stealing solo endeavour.
The next morning the two mutually suspicious aviators climbed into the balloon cart. Blanchard concluded that the balloon was too heavy for a launch and asked Jefferies to step out. Jefferies was right to harbour suspicions, and inspected Blanchard’s jacket. Sure enough, a preliminary frisk revealed that he was wearing a specially adapted waistcoat filled with lead weights. Behaving more like a Scooby-Doo villain than a pioneering aeronaut, Blanchard had mendaciously attempted to make sure the balloon was overweight for take-off, his plan being to force Jefferies to vacate the basket. Once the ruse was exposed, Jefferies demanded that the leaden waistcoat be jettisoned before take-off. The pair then took off, exploiting favourable weather and an obliging wind direction.
Skimming the sea, the Frenchman and American soon started to lose altitude. They had clearly put more effort into fighting each other than making sure that their balloon was adequately inflated. Even after they had jettisoned all their onboard ballast early in the flight (except for three ten-pound sacks of sand) a note-taking Jefferies observed: “The barometer immediately sank from 29.7 to 27.3.”
Throwing out ballast, Blanchard delighted in tossing Jefferies’ expensive scientific instruments overboard. But although the balloon initially rose, it soon sank again, hovering menacingly close to the white waves below. Panicking, they detached the basket ornaments, followed by their coats and hurled them over the side. Even this resulted in insufficient levitation. Finally Blanchard jettisoned his shoes, belt bucket and then, no doubt being French, his beret, onions, baguette and finally his trousers. “We were obliged,” Dr. Jeffries recounted in a subsequent letter to the President of the Royal Society, “to throw out the only bottle we had, which fell on the water with a loud sound, and sent up spray like smoke.”
The Man With His Head in the Clouds Page 6