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| | Montgolfier – hot air balloon with a shell filled with hot air. The balloon is named after
it’s inventors: Montgolfier brothers- Josef-Michel and Jacque-Etienne. First flight took place in Annonay (South-Western France) on 5 June 1783.
However, the history of hot air balloon started long before that date. On August 1709, Barthalameo Lorenzo, a man of Brazilian descent, living in Portugal, where he was known as priest Lorenzo Gusmao, had shown peerage a model of aeronautical machine which comprised of a thin egg-shaped shell with a hearth hanging underneath. Once at the time of experiments, the model went up 4m into the air. In the same year Gusmao, began working on the project “Passerola”. But it is not evident that the project taken place. But in any case Lorenzo Gusmao was the first man, by studying physics of nature, was able to educe practical way of aeronautics and tried to execute that in practice.
History about Russian countryman Kryakutnoi an assistant sexton from (Ryazan) in 1731 who attempted go aloft in a hot- balloon, is most probably is a fake one. This is how the incident was reported in manuscript “On air flying in 906 A.C.” 1731 year. in Ryazan, under an assistant sexton had made big ball, filled with bad and malodorous air, made loop to the ball, sat in that, and an evil power lifted him higher than a birch tree, then crashed into a bell tower, but he could scramble on to the bell pulling rope, and remained safe. He was expelled out of the village but people wanted to bury him alive or burn him up.
In 1782, brothers Josef-Michel and Jacque-Etienne Montgolfier, being absorbed by
problems of aeronautical dynamics, and attempted to experiment on shells filled with
hydrogen, and familiar with this invention, they came to a conclusion that the reason for the clouds to go up is due to electrification. For the purpose of getting gas, which would possess electrical properties, they had started burning wet straw and wool. This material they used is in accordance with the processes happening in electrograph, but they added water for deriving steam which is similar to that of the ingredients of clouds. They called these balloons (initially they were rectangular and only later they had become spherical) aerostatic engines. One among those balloons of 3,5m is in diameter was shown to relatives their kith and kin. One among the balloons went up to 300m, hovered in air for about 10 minutes. After this, Montgolfiers built a shell with 10m in diameter. That had been made with canvas, top inside of the shell was pasted over with paper and strengthened by a rope tape. Demonstration of the balloon took place in market square in Annonay, on 5th June 1783. Minutes of this experiment were recorded in detail. Balloon rose up to the height of 500m and kept in buoyancy for about 10 minutes, and flew a distance of 2 km.
On 19th September 1783, in Versailles (near Paris), in the presence of Louis XVI in his castle’s yard at 1pm, taking in its gondola first air travelers-a sheep, a rooster and a duck, the air balloon rocketed up. Balloon flew 4 km for 10 minutes. Balloon was needed to be loaded with 32kg of straw and 2.3kg of wool.
On 24 September 1784, in Lyon, before the Swedish king Gustav III, Madame Tible, the first woman in a hot air balloon, took off in air balloon to an altitude of 2700m and stayed there for 142 minutes.
15th of June 1785, was tragic day in the history of aeronautics. On this day, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, who was a pilot, a physicist, an inventor and also his friend, mechanic- Romaine died in air crash.
Further Montgolfiers replaced hydrogen air balloons with so called charlieres. This was induced because of flaws, inherence to the hot air balloons, namely: necessity of carrying ample quantity of fuel onboard, danger of fire in mid air and etc.
However, in the second half of XX century hot air balloons have again became popular owing to emerging new lightweight and fire-proof materials, coupled with special gas burners and gas cylinders compiled a more convenient and reliable control system for thermal aerostats. Besides another type of hot air balloons, like solar, came up. Temperature difference of air and shell is about 30C. Evidently, those aerostats can fly only in fine weather, and volume of the shell is 2, 5 -3 times more to that of an ordinary one.
Advent of new types of hot air balloons, also brought new kinds of competitions and air gala days- fiestas. In contests, it is needed to bring aerostat as closer as to the given point or optimizing time span or distance limit in flight. Fiestas are more like gala show: simultaneous start of tens, hundreds, and at some big events several thousands of aerostats, of different colors and models for producing indelible impression on the spectators.
Thermal remote control aerostats – these are remote controlled model aeroplanes of thermal aerostats with volume of 200 cubic meters. |
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