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More than two hundred years ago in France two brothers called Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier
invented a flying machine that for the first time in history enabled man to take to the
sky. In doing so, they realized one of man's oldest ambitions.
The inhabitants of Paris were witnesses to an extraordinary competition.
Aeronautical experts started to invent new and exciting designs; flights started to get
longer and new records were set.
You have to ask yourself why. Why were people so excited about this? In part, it's because
they were seeing human beings fly for he first time. This was our oldest dream.
Today, in a meadow in the Ardèche in region in south-central France, the very place where
the adventure started, a team of hot air balloon enthusiasts are setting off on a mission to
follow in the footsteps of these extraordinary inventors.
We need to take it out as it is. Be careful of the suspension cables.
They spent several months researching the techniques and materials used by their predecessors....and
they then spent weeks recreating the first hot air balloon to have flown above Earth.
Mercedes Taravillo and Guillaume de Montgolfier, a descendant of the famous Montgolfier brothers,
manufacture modern-day hot air balloons. They have made over one hundred balloons.
They are now hoping to find answers to the questions that arose whilst they were making
the replica hot air balloon: - How did the hot air balloon pioneers come
up with their ideas? - How did they craft their balloons that took
off into the sky? - And what were the most significant moments
during their mission to take to the air?
The history of the firstx human flight started in Annonay, a small town in the Ardèche region.
In June 1783, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier built several successful small balloons in
their family's paper factory. They then decided to make their first public appearance.
The inhabitants of Annonay still commemorate their first flight alongside the descendants
of the famous inventors.
Their balloon was made of a mixture of paper from the family factory and burlap. It was
30 feet high. Etienne and Joseph inflated it by lighting a fire of straw underneath
the balloon... Once the heat was sufficient enough to lift
the balloon, the two brothers cut the ropes and watched their hot air balloon take off..
No problems! We'll wait for it to come back down.
It took ten minutes for it to rise 3000 feet before landing 2 miles from the starting point.
The spectators were amazed and enthralled. They were aware that they were witnessing
a moment that would be recorded in history.
My ancestors were innovative..and...crazy enough to do extraordinary things!
A machine of this mass, this weight, left the ground and took flight in the sky. It
was unimaginable. The public and the scientific community were asking the same question: "How
did they do it?".
According to legend, one evening, Joseph Montgolfier, lost in his thoughts, noticed his wife's shirt
billowing in the fireplace.
The shirt inflated, twirled and seemed to almost take off before it collapsed.
For Joseph, it was a revelation. He wondered if a machine could be powered by hot air.
He had one thing on his mind: how was he going to build the world's first airship?
This was a turning point for the family and the family business. It all began in front
of the fire on a cold winter's night.
Joseph started his venture by making small paper balloons that he launched, hidden behind
the walls of Brogieux Castle, with his brother Etienne.
Mercedes, Guillaume and Jean Claude Ragaru are commemorating these short flights in the
place where they occurred. Thanks to their intuition, Guillaume's ancestors
successfully took off from land. But how did they design, build and fly their machine?
These questions are at the origin of the team's somewhat crazy idea:
to recreate the first hot air balloon that was capable of carrying two men up into the
sky!
The first stage of the project involves finding out the shape and size of the hot air balloon.
These are only drafts....but they are very detailed...we've found the calculations....where
they analyzed the exact force required to lift a balloon of a certain size.
But even though they have found countless pages of calculations they haven't found any
sketches that represent the exact shape of the hot air balloon. Jean Claude has found
a drawing by Joseph Montgolfier, held by the Museum of Air and Space at Le Bourget that
represents their initial ideas for their hot air balloon.
It has a cone at the top, a cylinder here and the body of a cone at the bottom, it's
similar to a present day hot air balloon. If you make a hot air balloon in this form
you shouldn't have any problems.
Joseph used his own calculations and intuition to come to the conclusion that a hot air balloon
capable of carrying two men had to be 75 feet high and 50 feet in diameter -- a canvas and
paper monster as tall as an eight-storey building!
Is it possible to reconstruct an aerostat of this size? This is a huge challenge for
Mercedes and it requires careful planning. A 1/10th scale model shows how the balloon
can be made, just like the original machine, from 24 pieces of canvas and paper.
It will make a pretty amazing hot air balloon, 80,000 cubic feet, it will be beautiful!
I know that it won't be easy...but it's achievable.
News of the reconstruction of the Montgolfier hot air balloon has crossed the Atlantic.
Tom Crouch, the curator of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, is a hot air
balloon enthusiast.
Recreating a Montgolfier balloon is a huge problem. I mean, the first manned Montgolfier,
the November 21st balloon, was 70ft tall and over 40ft in diameter. It's huge!
Tom wrote a book about the history of the first hot air balloons. For him, the Montgolfier
brothers are not the only protagonists in the story. They are recorded in history books
as the inventors of hot air balloon travel but they owe a lot to their competition....an
unknown French inventor called Jacques Alexandre Charles.
He took a radically different direction in the race to take off. He didn't believe that
Joseph and Etienne's hot air balloon was powered by fire alone.
He had his own laboratory and he was sure that the two brothers were using hydrogen,
a gas eleven times lighter than air, to enable their hot air balloon to fly without fire.
Tom found letters in London that reveal the experiences of the formidable competitor.
The author was Benjamin Franklin.
The American diplomat was in France to negotiate the independence of his country. But he was
also a physicist; he had just invented the lightning rod.
Two months after the hot air balloon flight in Annonay, he attended, and was fascinated
by, the flight of Charles's first prototype. He sent an account of the event to the renowned
Royal Society of London.
The crowds invaded the Champ de Mars. And suddenly, the hot air balloon started to rise.
A light rain had moistened it and made it shine in the light. It looked beautiful. It
got smaller as it rose in the air. It soon looked as if it were the size of an
orange.
Franklin wanted to make sure that his English colleagues, who had never seen anything like
this, got a notion of what it looked like, felt like and even sounded like to be there.
It's a marvelous account, the world's first gas balloon that was ever flown.
In August 1783, Charles's prototype caused great panic in Gonesse, the village where
it landed, a few miles north of Paris.
The country-folk thought that it was a supernatural phenomenon.
When a balloon is on the ground, you know, it's not just laying there. The hydrogen inside
is sort of moving around and the balloon is kind of moving and it had fallen down in the
middle of a group of peasants who were frightened by it.
So they attacked it with scythes and flails and once they destroyed it, they tied it to
the tail of a horse and pulled it in triumph through the streets of Gonesse. So the world's
first hydrogen balloon came to a sad, sad end.
The Montgolfier brothers' first public hot air flight in Annonay was a success.
Charles successfully completed his first hydrogen flight and brought his mutilated hot air balloon
back to Paris.
The battle was on and the next move was imperative.
Who was going to be the first man to board a flying machine?
In order to construct his next hot air balloon, Etienne Montgolfier glued a cotton canvas
on to paper that had been manufactured by the family business.
Mercedes and Guillaume usually make their hot air balloons out of nylon and they are
uncertain about using this technique.
Where will they find paper similar to the kind the paper that was used back then? It
must be tear-proof yet light enough to fly.
Can you help us?
What are your technical requirements for the construction of the hot air balloon?
Well, it can't be too heavy......and in addition to that...it needs to be sturdy...not too
porous...and as light as possible.
Since the 18th century, the Richard de Bas mill has been employing the same methods that
were used by the Montgolfier brothers to produce paper.
Rag pickers collect pieces of linen, cotton or hemp, which are then cut into small pieces
before being mixed with water, hammered, and then decomposed until they become pulp.
Next, the papermakers decide which thickness of sheet they are going to produce. The pulp
is mixed with water in a tank. The thicker that the solution is then the heavier and
more sturdy the paper will be. They dilute the solution if they want the paper to be
thinner.
The Montgolfier brothers had to choose between sturdiness and lightness when they were making
their hot air balloon.
The 180-gram paper is pretty flexible.
It's not bad.
The 120-gram paper is a little bit thinner.
There isn't much difference and this one would be more prudent mechanically speaking.
The letters left by Joseph and Etienne show that they used paper to make sure that the
covering was airtight and a cotton canvas to ensure that it was sturdy.
But can a hot air balloon really be made using this method? Despite its apparent simplicity,
the team are concerned. Tom arrives at Mercedes's workshop with Benjamin
2.
Tom's curiosity got the better of him. The curator of the National Air and Space Museum
has come to join Mercedes and Guillaume.
This is Tom
We've done the first one.
Hello, Tom.
Hello.
We need six thousand, I think.
We'll get Tom involved.
Do you want to help me set it down?
This is an honor!
Like this. We turn it over. Like this. Hold it in the air. I'll tell you...we lower it
down...it has to be 1cm.
1cm.
That's it.
That's right. Like this.
It's an honor to be part of this, to be building a Montgolfier balloon again after all of these
years. Just wonderful. And to be using the same kind of paper and materials that they
used in the 1783, just marvelous.
Time passes quickly and they don't have any problems. The team members use the same type
of fish-skin based glue that was used by the Montgolfier brothers.
The task almost seems too easy....
It's true that we're uncertain what the outcome will be once it has dried
This is the big question. Will the paper have bonded to the fabric once
it has dried?
Oh no!
Well, it didn't work.
Oh no!
Yes.
It didn't stick at all.
The glue didn't stick at all.
We diluted it.
We can see that the panel was covered with glue...completely..it's dry...but it didn't
stick.
They have encountered their first big problem. The glue hasn't stuck the paper to the canvas.
The sheets come off easily.
Yeah, making the panels is proving somewhat challenging.
We haven't finished yet!
Is it because they diluted the expensive fish glue?
The first gluing session has been a failure. The team decides to start again using special
wallpaper glue that is used in present day manufacturing.
This should work.
it is finished; one section of the balloon is finished. Twenty-three more to go. But
it's marvelous to see this one finished. It's a good beginning.
September 1783. A rumor spreads: a man is going to board a hot air balloon! Two weeks
after Charles's gas balloon flight! But Louis XVI opposes the event and declares
that it must be proved that it will not be fatal. For if the ascent takes place at Versailles,
then he is part of the project, and it must be a success...
How was he going to persuade the King?
Etienne Montgolfier had an extraordinary idea: ... to make animals fly!
On the morning of September 19, in the Versailles Gardens, a wicker basket carrying a sheep,
a rooster and a duck was attached to a large hot air balloon.
It's similar to the experiments carried out with monkeys by the Americans or dogs by the
Russians. They were exploring an unknown world.
These animals were the first air travelers.
At the time, scientists didn't know if man could survive in a world as unknown as the
sky, it seemed empty and daunting.
People had climbed mountains so they knew that if you climbed to the top of the mountain
there was still air to breathe, but they weren't sure that the atmosphere perhaps didn't hug
the contours of the earth. So if you get 100 feet above the surface of the earth, would
there still be air to breathe up there. So it was important to conduct an experiment
with living creatures just to make sure that there was something to breathe up there and
that they'd be ok.
Pull, harder, harder.
Roland de Montgolfier, Guillaume's uncle, owns a nylon replica of the balloon that flew
over Versailles.
Well, it's pretty extraordinary to be in this kind of situation...to fly a hot air balloon
as magnificent as this one.
I try to put myself in their context and in the skin of the people of that time...they
must have thought that it was magical... because the 'power' driving the balloon was invisible...
'what magic was occurring when it inflated and took flight?'.
It took until 1 p.m. on September the19th to inflate the hot air balloon using the fire/hot
air system. Four men approached the basket holding the animals that had been suspended
from the royal globe. A gunshot was fired, the cables were cut and the hot air balloon
started to rise.
After a few minutes of flight, the balloon cooled and slowly descended. It landed in
a wood about 2 miles from the starting point. The animals were safe. Two cavaliers, one
of whom was to go on to become very famous, joined them. His name was Jean-François Pilâtre
de Rozier. A few weeks later, he was the first man to take flight in the sky.
The flight from Versailles caused a real stir. It inspired objects, dresses and hats. Street
traders started selling small balloons on every corner. They filled the sky over the
capital. One question remained on everyone's lips:
Who would have the courage to attempt to defy the laws of gravity?
Etienne was determined to build on the success of the Versailles flight. He went to Réveillon,
the royal wallpaper manufacturers in Paris. He constructed a new and more impressive machine,
the decoration and motifs were devoted to the glory of the king.
The artwork has presented a new challenge for Mercedes and Guillaume. The entire surface
of the Montgolfier brothers' blue hot air balloon was decorated with royal motifs that
paid tribute to Louis XVI. But how will they find the colors that were
used by Réveillon -- or the azure blue that represented the French monarchy? The ochre,
the gold? And how will they reproduce such complex decoration?
A wallpaper factory in Alsace still uses techniques from that time.
We
want to recreate the original colors but we don't have any of the original Montgolfier
material, we have a series of pictures that were done when the hot air balloon took flight,
but they all depict a different shade of blue so we are going to base our colors on a selection
of pigments used in the 18th century and try to find a compromise with the picture that
seems the most credible and precise as far as the motifs are concerned.
According to Jean-Baptiste Martin, a period-paint specialist, the only blue pigments that were
used at this time were indigo and cobalt blue...and royal blue was created by mixing these two
colors with Meudon white.
and the gold parts? Is it the same? Are they made of gold?
The Réveillon wallpapers were made by hand and the workers created the gold color.
As far as the color is concerned, this is interesting to look at for the hot air balloon
because we can see that all of the parts that were gold were in fact created using yellow
ochre that gave ...
An effect of gold gilding ...
...an effect of gold gilding... ...This is what we will use to decorate the
hot air balloon. We have a yellow ochre pigment that creates a gold-like effect.
Back to Annonay. Given the size of the sections that need to be reconstructed, the team has
had to leave Mercedes's workshop and work in a bigger space. The color project starts.
Let's go! Come on...
Just like in Réveillon two centuries ago, Mercedes and her friends start sewing the
first two sections together. They progress inch by inch.
It's really sturdy, huh.
It's as if I'm sewing a piece of leather, it's so thick and hard.
I've pricked my fingers but...anyway..bit by bit...we're progressing.
It's covered in blood! It's covered in blood!
..in Benjamin's blood!
Do you think it's cursed?
It takes the team four hours to sew the first thirteen feet of the first two sections!
The team is interrupted by some unexpected news. Jean Claude Ragaru was given a letter
by a collector that said that five days before the animal flight took off at Versailles,
Etienne's hot air balloon was completely destroyed by a rainstorm.
He wrote about what happened at Versailles: "I took a cotton canvas and I painted it on
both sides etc ".
Time was running out and Etienne had to find a quick and simple way to reconstruct his
aerostat using a simple cotton canvas and painted it on both sides
Does this mean that we should change the material that we have been working with and find a
solution that's a little more resistant and is easier to create?
The team at the atelier considers the contents of the letter and the practical implications:
abandoning the manufacture of sections that they have produced using canvas and paper
and starting again.
Their spirits have been dampened but they are soon back on track.
The task has now been simplified. They just need to cut the different sections out using
a pair of scissors. They quickly fit the different sections together
and move on to the next stage of production.
The double L representing Louis XIV, the signs of the zodiac, lilies and golden eagles will
be painted on to the 24 different sections of the hot air balloon.
There is almost 10,000 ft2 to decorate!
Winter landscape, Annonay region. We understand that time has passed. Mercedes's large workshop.
The decoration is finished. They are now putting the different sections of the balloon covering
together. Mercedes looks exhausted.
Two months...it took a further two months for Mercedes Taravillo, Guillaume de Montgolfier
and their team to finish decorating their replica balloon.
This time, Mercedes has chosen to use her sewing machine to stitch the different sections
together.
We tried everything and to be honest, I gave up. It just wasn't possible.
The Montgolfier brothers were helped by the staff from Réveillon that had been put at
their disposition. I'm not that lucky, I don't have 100 people to come and help me and the
project could have taken years rather than months.
That isn't an option. That really isn't an option.
In the end, it took five months for the team to assemble Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier's
hot air balloon.
Fall 1783. Etienne Montgolfier's new hot air balloon was ready. Who was willing to climb
aboard? Pilâtre de Rozier put himself forward but Louis the XIV was beset by hesitation
and afraid of the dangers that were involved.
The notion was actually put out there that perhaps they should fly a condemned criminal
the first time just in case, just in case. And individuals, especially Pilâtre de Rozier
stood up and said "no, you can't possibly do that. The honor of being the first human
being to leave the earth cannot go to a criminal".
After a month of procrastination, Louis the XVI-th agreed to Pilâtre's request, but on
one condition: he did not want to be associated with the possible failure of the first flight
through the air. It had to take place far away from Versailles!
20 November 1783. When Benjamin Franklin arrived at the Muette
Castle that morning, he witnessed Pilâtre de Rozier and his copilot, the Marquis of
Arlandes, boarding the flying machine. Slowly, in front of French nobility, the hot air balloon
left the ground.
When it came over our heads, we could see the fire, it had reached a considerable size.
I was worried for the men, and thought that they risked being ejected or burned.
Pilâtre and Arlandes continued to add straw to the fire in order to keep it burning.
The hot air balloon climbed into the sky. The spectators were amazed, they watched it
spin over the Seine before disappearing.
Franklin had reason to be alarmed. A few minutes after takeoff, sparks reached the lower edge
of the hot air balloon and it looked like it might start to burn.
They had sponges on long sticks so that they - looking through little square openings in
front of them - could kind of dab burning spots inside the balloon and put them out..
The two occupants didn't handle the situation very well and they decided to make an emergency
landing. However, they had achieved the unthinkable: man had found a way to travel through the
sky!
For Etienne, the competition was over. For his adversary, Jacques Charles, this flight
had proved nothing of the sort! He thought that the Montgolfier hot air balloon
was heavy, archaic and that Pilâtre's flight had been ridiculously short.
When would his hydrogen balloons be ready? Within a few weeks, he had invented an aerostat
that is still considered as a reference for long distance hot air balloons.
Xavier Waymel is a hot air balloon enthusiast. He manufactured his own balloon based on Charles's
drawings.
So, in terms of size, the two balloons are quite similar, it is 32 feet in diameter,
and Charles's was about 29 feet, so, it's a similar size.
Their air balloon was made of a similar fabric. It was one of the first times that rubber
had been used. They needed something that was impermeable at the same time as supple.
Charles sealed the fabric by covering it using a light rubber coating. This new material
had recently been discovered in South America. He also designed a valve spring.
This is how is opens. It's the same on the other side. When the
valve is opened it lets out gas thus making the hot air balloon heavier, which means that
it descends naturally.
See you later.
I think that Charles probably did exactly the same thing. Safety checks need to be carried
out to ensure that the cables don't get tangled up.
Charles held the hot air balloon down with a net.
Hot air balloons are still held down using a net!
A small detail: aeronauts today no longer use the same methods to produce hydrogen as
they did in the eighteenth century!
Monday, 1 December 1783. Only ten days after Pilâtre's flight through the air, the press
announced that Charles was going to take to the sky.
The crowds gathered in the Tuileries gardens, they climbed over railings and walls to get
a good view. The amount of people was unbelievable. Half of the population of Paris witnessed
the event. Franklin was there of course, to witness this
unique event.
It was a real pleasure for the eyes to see, it gradually rose above the buildings, what
a beautiful sight!
Another witness stated that two hundred thousand men raised their arms to the sky! Some cried
in horror to the bold physicists, others fell to their knees or gasped in surprise, there
was an atmosphere of terror and joy.
It's still extraordinary.
It was close! It was close! Very close! We were about 16 feet away from the skylights!
During the next two hours, Charles learnt how to operate a hot air balloon.
That's enough to rise a few feet.
When I want to descend, I pull on the rope that operates the valve. This system has not
changed since the late 18th century.
Charles's first hot air balloon trip was a huge success. On its first flight, the flying
machine travelled more than 25 miles!
The aerostat landed in Nesles prairie in northern Paris. Robert, Charles's passenger disembarked
from the hot air balloon and left the inventor to take a short flight on his own. He was
on a mission to set a record. According to the barometer that he had fitted
inside the hot air balloon the ever-intrepid Charles reached an incredible altitude of
10,000 feet.
10,000 feet on a first attempt in a vessel that had never been used. It was a remarkable
achievement.
Five flights in the space of a few months...The Montgolfier brothers and Charles had paved
the way for man to travel through the sky.
The hot air ballooning adventures is far from over.
This goes on here.
In Annonay, the shadow of the first inventors is felt as the final preparations for the
flight of the replica hot air balloon take place. The team has many concerns...
I have huge doubts about the weight of the hot air balloon and whether we'll be able
to create enough heat just using straw.
But, that's how they did it.
Yes, that's how they did it. It's..well, we'll see.
I'm more worried about the actual flight. It...
There weren't any overhead electrical cables in those days, and they didn't have the same
infrastructure..so I....I'm pretty worried about the flight. There's about a one in ten
change of being on the right axis!
I've been asking myself, as I'm sure that we all have, as pilots, who is going to go
up in the hot air balloon? Who is suicidal enough...or adventurous enough..to test our
invention??
And?
....right now this question remains unanswered.
Finally! The team has been waiting for two months for optimal weather conditions. But
just hours before the flight, they receive bad news:
Like Louis the XVI-th before them, the aeronautical authorities have refused to register the hot
air balloon and free flight is therefore prohibited.
In any case, Well, we need to take it out now that it's here...
A tethered flight is their only option.
Before the first hot air balloon was launched, Pilâtre de Rozier learned to operate it during
a series of tethered flights. It therefore seems apt that the team is required
to do things this way. In 1783, two large posts were fixed to both
sides of the balloon opening in order to facilitate inflation. A crane is used for this task at
Brogieux Castle.
You are going to see something that hasn't happened in a very long time, not like this
in any case.
Straw is being used to fuel the fire that will inflate the balloon -- they are using
the same method that was used 200 years ago by the world's first aeronauts!
It was just like this, they used straw for fuel, they then added pieces of rotten meat
and sheep's wool. But they preferred using dry straw because
it smelt better and it was efficient.
I've been able to step back a bit, it looks lovely in the air, I feel very emotional!
Well, it hasn't been an easy pregnancy but it's a beautiful baby.
It's burning well. Shall we lift it? Let's lift it. Right!
A modern gas burner has been installed in the basket in order to take over from the
fire as the balloon takes flight.
We opted for the burner because the fire alone isn't sufficient...especially if we want to
board the balloon...it's a safety issue.
A series of security measures have been put in place but the team can't prevent the unexpected.
Despite the many precautions that have been taken the rope that attaches the hot air balloon
to the crane doesn't seem to be unhooking in the way that it should and is stopping
the balloon from rises - there is a risk that the covering will tear.
Careful, careful! It's rising, it's rising!
The problem is solved quickly. The hot air balloon is relapsed from the hook that was
jammed. It straightens up and is ready to rise.
The cables, the cables!
Off we go!
Just like Pilâtre de Rosier and the Marquis of Arlandes, Mercedes and André, the team
leaders, set off to prove the aerospace capabilities of their replica balloon.
Guillaume, Jean Claude, Tom and other members of the team wait to take their turn and board
the hot air balloon.
Well, we'll soon be wanting to take off for real, the problems have evaporated, it's great,
it's great.
It's emotional to see the hot air balloon, it's just like first flight to have been taken
by man. It's a real thrill, for heaven's sake!
After the success of Pilâtre de Rozier and Charles's flights, hot air ballooning really
took off in Europe. Every type of inventor wanted to become involved. They designed,
and sometimes manufactured, balloons of all shapes and sizes. Their technical inventions
seemed limitless...and were at time, useless...
A final challenge was brewing. A new question had arisen. They could fly...but where could
they go?
What was the point of a hot air balloon if its destination was unknown.
The Montgolfier brothers had run out of time and money and they headed back to the Ardèche
region to manage their family's paper business. However, two other intrepid explorers were
chasing their dream...
They had a goal. They wanted to cross the Channel! Accomplishing this feat would prove
that long distance balloon trips were possible.
The team set off from Dover, in England. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, built a somewhat
peculiar shaped vessel that was equipped with oars and a rudder. His teammate, John Jeffries,
was American. He said: "It is now time to develop and perfect this fantastic potential."
Crossing the channel in a hot air balloon is still considered a huge challenge. The
strait is over 20 miles wide and weather conditions are never very good.
Tom Crouch and Xavier Waymel are hoping to cross the channel.
It's a complicated flight to take, we have been waiting for the right weather conditions
for over a month, it's not surprising given the season. When the first flight across the
channel took place, they waited for weeks, they had almost given up hope when they finally
had the right conditions and were able to take flight.
There are always risks involved. Crossing the sea is risky because we don't want to
land in water -- it's very cold. We try to manage the risks - we do everything we can
- but we can never be 100% sure....
As dawn broke on January the 7th, 1785 the sky was clear and calm.
Just over a year after Pilâtre de Rozier's first flight, Blanchard and Jeffries took
to the sky, they were euphoric at the same time as apprehensive.
Their hot air balloon moved slowly towards the sea.
Oh its wonderful, we're right where Blanchard and Jeffries were , when you look back, you
can see Dover, all the little towns behind it Now I see, in fact, that it's just the
way he said it was, it's just wonderful up here.
The flight was very challenging. They were learning on the job. They were trying to steer
the vessel with a rudder and they had to avoid flying too close to the sea. The French coast
seemed a long way away when they started their voyage.
Balloons go where the wind blows them. And it's not a great deal that you can do about
that, but at the time, they still believed that you could sort of row your way across
the sky.
Let me read you Jeffries's account on the voyage, Jeffries said 'At 2 o'clock we realized
that we were descending considerably. We didn't have the slightest bit of ballast remaining.
So we threw over one oar, then a rudder, we were still approaching the sea, we decided
to undress and throw our clothes overboard. I then observed that we were rising again.
And a lovely vision of France rose in the distance.'
Jeffries and Blanchard endeavored to remain at a certain altitude at all times during
their crossing. It took them two and a half hours to reach the French coast. They were
the first to achieve this aeronautical feat -- even if they weren't particularly in control
of the outcome.
What altitude are we at now?
2,500 feet.(??)
Right, there it is.
Xavier and Tom's journey is proving challenging. The wind suddenly changes direction and takes
them north, away from Calais and the French coast.
After six hours of flight they finally touch land.
But... they are in Belgium! Their knowledge of weather conditions and air navigation wasn't
broad enough to enable them to navigate the same flight path as Jeffries and Blanchard.
It went well but we really struggled. We really tried to stay on track. Unfortunately our
track didn't lead us in the right direction. I started to ask myself how long we were going
to stay above the sea. I started to worry. It was pretty scary.
More than two centuries after the first hot air balloon flight across the Channel, it's
still impossible to navigate a balloon in a certain direction.
To Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries..and us!
They were great balloonists.
They were, indeed! As are you!
Blanchard and Jeffries's success wasn't well received by everyone.
Pilâtre de Rozier had been trying to cross the Channel for several months.
He was in debt and the King, who was financially supporting him, was getting impatient.
In the early hours of June 15th, 1785, the world's first aeronaut left the French coast.
After twenty-seven minutes of flight, a violet flame appeared at the top of the hybrid gas
and hot air balloon. The covering set on fire and the vessel fell from the sky.
The first people to arrive on the scene couldn't do anything to help.
Pilâtre de Rozier and Romain, his unfortunate companion, were taking their last breaths.
They were the first victims of the aerial world.
Pilâtre de Rozier is recorded in the history books at the first man to have flown across
the sky. He took the first step in the conquest of
an unknown space and within a number of weeks; he was followed by Charles, Jeffries, Blanchard
and a few others. It was as if the world were ready to make
this discovery, and to live it. In this sense, it was a collective adventure.
Hot air balloons have since remained a symbol of peace and calm belonging to a world of
dreams and freedom. ...