Aeronautical inventors: Joseph Michel Montgolfier (17401810) and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier (174599), born in Annonay, SC France. In 1782 they constructed a balloon whose bag was lifted by lighting a cauldron of paper beneath it, thus heating and rarifying the air it contained. A flight of 9 km/5½ mi, at 3000 ft, carrying Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes, was achieved in 1783 - the world's first manned flight. Further experiments were frustrated by the outbreak of the French Revolution.
The brothers, Joseph Michel Montgolfier (26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier (6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799), invented the montgolfière, or hot air balloon.
Early years
The brothers were born into a family of successful paper manufacturers in Annonay, south of Lyon, France.
Joseph possessed a typical inventor's temperament -- a maverick and dreamer but impractical in terms of business and personal affairs.
Étienne (as Jacques Étienne was more generally known) had a much more even and businesslike temperament than Joseph. However, after the sudden and unexpected death of Raymond in 1772, he was recalled to Annonay to run the family business (no serious consideration was given to the elder Joseph in this role, given his uneven behaviour.) In the subsequent 10 years, Étienne applied his talent for technical innovation to the family business (papermaking was a high tech industry in the 18th century.) He succeeded in incorporating the latest innovations of the day into the family mills.
Initial experiments
Of the two brothers, it was Joseph who first contemplated building flying machines.
There is no definitive account of when Joseph first started contemplating lighter-than-air flight.
Joseph made his first definitive experiments in November of 1782 while living in Avignon.
As a result of these musing, Joseph set about building a box-like chamber (3 foot by 3 foot by 4 foot) out of very thin wood and covering the sides and top with lightweight taffeta cloth.
Joseph then recruited his brother to balloon building by writing the prophetic words: "Get in a supply of taffeta and of cordage, quickly, and you will see one of the most astonishing sights in the world."
Early in next month, December 1782, Joseph repeated his experiment out of doors in a garden near the family homestead with his entire family as witness. On this occasion, the box-like balloon lifted to some 70 feet in the air and remained aloft for a full minute.
The two brothers then set about building a contraption 3 times larger in scale (27 times larger in volume).
Public demonstrations
Given these initial successes, the brothers decided to make a public demonstration of a balloon in order to establish their claim to its invention.
They constructed a globe-shaped balloon (there are no reports as to whether the balloon was plain or decorated) of sackcloth with three thin layers of paper inside.
On 4 June 1783 (many sources incorrectly fix the date as 5 June), they flew this craft as their first public demonstration at Annonay in front of a group of dignitaries from the Etats particulars.
Word of their success quickly reached Paris.
There was an intense competition between the brothers and Jacques Alexandre César Charles who had already made a public demonstration of a balloon using hydrogen as its lifting gas.
In collaboration with the successful wallpaper manufacturer, Jean Baptiste Réveillon, Etienne constructed a 37,500 cubic foot envelope of taffeta coated with varnish. The balloon was covered in bright colors and flourishes to distinguish it from the rather plain design of the Charles balloons.
There was some concern about the effects of flight into the upper atmosphere on living creatures.
On 19 September 1783 the Aerostat Réveillon (as Etienne referred to it) was flown with the first living beings in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep, a duck and a rooster.
The flight lasted approximately 8 minutes, covered 2 miles, and obtained an altitude of about 1500 feet.
One of the first people at the site of the landing was Pilâtre de Rozier who had already volunteered to be one of the first humans aloft when the time came. (Pierre Montgolfier, father of the inventive brothers, had given his permission for his sons to work on balloons rather than the family papermaking business only on the condition that neither of the brothers ever go aloft in a balloon themselves.)
Human flight
With the successful demonstration at Versailles, and again in collaboration with Réveillon, Etienne started construction of a 60,000 cubic foot balloon for the purpose of making flights with humans. (Etienne's excursion, albeit tethered was the cause of much paternal consternation as he had promised his father that he would not ride in a balloon himself.) The craft was once again decorated with flourishes and was 75 feet tall and 46 feet in diameter.
The balloon was tested in tethered flights later in 1783 on 15, 17 and 19 October.
On 21 November 1783, the first free flight by humans was made by Pilâtre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes, who flew aloft for 25 minutes about 100 metres above Paris for a distance of nine kilometres. Enough fuel remained on board at the end of the flight to have allowed the balloon to fly four to five times as far.
The ascensions made a sensation. Chairs were designed with balloon backs, and mantel clocks were produced in enamel and gilt-bronze replicas set with a dial in the balloon.
Following years
Only one of the brothers (which one is unknown) ever flew in a balloon himself, but only once.
In 1766, the British scientist Henry Cavendish had discovered hydrogen gas, by adding sulphuric acid to iron, tin, zinc shavings.
For a variety of reasons, including the fact that the French government chose to put a proponent of hydrogen in charge of balloon development, hot air balloons were superseded by hydrogen gas balloons.
Hydrogen balloons became the predominent technology for the next 180 years.
Revival of the hot air balloon
Balloons using heated air rather than lighter-than-air gasses did not return until the 1960s, when Ed Yost improved the safety of the classic Montgolfier design by using ripstop nylon for the envelope and propane gas as the burner fuel.
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