The Beginning
Because of the opinion that the petroglyphs on the plains of Nazca could only be comprehended from an aerial view it is suggested that the pre-Inca Peruvians may have viewed them from above. If they did, it had to be from a balloon and this would then have been the first. http://www.nott.com/nazca.htm Other stronger evidence suggests that the ancient Chinese used hot air balloons. Finally, we give the actual credit for the invention to the Montgolfier Brothers, Jacques Etienne and Joseph of Annonay, a small town just south of Lyon, France. They took Joseph’s wife’s inspiration from watching skirts billowing in the kitchen from the heat of a charcoal burner foot stool being used to dry laundry and reduced it to practice. The fact that the Montgolfier family fortune was based on their discovering the secrets of paper making in China where there were also legends of ancient hot air balloon activity is assumed by some as the actual origination of the inspiration attributed to "Citizen Madame Montgolfier". But the Montgolfiers reduced it to practice.
Tiberius Cavalo had already demonstrated that Archimedies’ Principle was applicable to objects in air by successfully floating hydrogen filled soap bubbles. He also attempted to duplicate this easy experiment with bubbles made from animal bladders but they were too heavy to ascend. Fortunately the provincial Montgolfiers were not constrained by laboratory techniques and created their hot air balloon on a cruder and much larger scale. Because the area (and therefore the weight) of a balloon goes up by the square of the diameter and the volume (and therefore the lift) increases by the cube of the diameter, they succeeded handily. On June 4,1783 they made a public demonstration in Annonay with a 33 foot diameter cloth and paper unmanned balloon using the heat from a straw fire.
The hot air balloon was termed a “Montgolfiere”.
With the news from Annonay, Professor Charles, knowing full well that hydrogen was lighter than the hot air smoke of Montgolfier , must have instantly realized that all he had to do to use it was to make his experiment on a larger scale. The first space race was on. On August 27th Charles flew an unmanned varnished silk hydrogen balloon. It was attacked and destroyed by the locals when it landed. The Montgolfiers countered with a hot air balloon carrying a sheep, a duck and a rooster on September 19th to determine if they could survive in the open air. Now they added rotten meat, old shoe leather and other materials to the fire, ostensibly to create a new gas, to camouflage the real source of buoyancy and perhaps to keep the other camp at a distance. The greasy smoke may have helped the paper lining to seal the cotton fabric.
The first person at the landing site of the menagerie balloon was one Jean Pilâtre de Rozier who was to become the first balloon pilot.
While Charles was designing and having the Robert brothers build a larger hydrogen balloon that would carry him aloft, deRozier was teaching himself to fly by first going up with a restraining rope. Before Charles could get his gas balloon ready, de Rozier and the Marquis deArlande persuaded the King to permit them to make the first free flight in Montgolfier’s hot air balloon.. (Some had proposed that convicted criminals should be used for the experiment.) On November 21st they went aloft over Paris. Twenty minutes and five miles later they safely returned to Earth. Ten days later Charles followed with the first gas balloon ascension accompanied by one of the Robert brothers. On landing twenty seven miles away, Robert stepped out to let Charles make a second ascent. The balloon ascended at a terrifying rate with Prof. Charles on the world’s first solo flight. It finally leveled out at about ten thousand feet and he was able to bring it safely down, needless to say, never to fly again.
The gas balloon was termed a “Charliere”.
Charles’ gas balloon design has survived intact to this day with only minor modifications. Charles Green invented the drag rope and John Wise discovered the rip panel. Both of these have made controlled landings much easier. Green also pioneered the use of coal gas from the city gas works. But the basics of Charles’ balloon – the net, the load ring, the suspended basket below and the gas valve at the top – are retained in today’s orthodox balloon.
Apparently, for the Parisians, the amazing flight of Charles had “Completely eclipsed the Montgolfier star.” The Montgolfiers went home to plan a dramatic comeback for the new year.
The third manned flight, then, was with the largest hot air balloon ever built until 1970. Named after the Governor of Lyon “LeFlesseles”, it was damaged in early inflation attempts. Because of the precarious condition of the great balloon DeRoziere and Joseph Montgolfier attempted to ascend without the four noblemen scheduled to join them, but swords were drawn and the balloon left the ground with seven passengers and a large tear appearing. While it climbed to about 3,000 feet with the tear progressing it could not stay aloft and within fifteen minutes it had plummeted back to Earth for a violent impact. No one was injured, but Montgolfier, like Charles, never flew again.
Within two years de Rozier took the crossing of the English Channel, a traditional challenge, under consideration. To compensate for the shortcomings of the two types of balloons, he invented the combination of a hydrogen balloon with a small hot air balloon below it. The hydrogen balloon was to provide the basic lift and the hot air balloon was to control the system without having to constantly drop ballast or valve gas. His balloon, christened “Tour de Calais" was brilliantly decorated with artwork and metallic gilding. According to recent investigation, the metallic coating caused a static discharge and the hydrogen filled, varnished envelope ignited. deRoziere and his passenger died within minutes of the ensuing crash.. They were uncerimoniously buried at the site within a few more minutes.
The three basic types of balloons were, then, all invented at the very beginning. The fourth distinct type, the superpressure balloon, was proposed by French General Jean Meusnier on December 3, 1783 but not successfully built until the 1950’s.
Except for the rip panel and the drag rope ballooning saw no advancement in the 19th Century but higher altitudes achieved and greater distances flown. “Smoke” balloons, without onboard fire, did become popular for fairs and exhibitions as parachutes were perfected. The dynamic launch of a canvas balloon, belching black smoke, snatching a trapeze artist aloft only to have him (or her!) parachute from a thousand or more feet aloft became the standard grand climax of any American celebration at the turn of the 20th century. Cotton balloons and parachutes were available commercially for less than $100 the set. Bookings for itinerant “Professors” fell to less than $25 per event. The poor practitioners were continually saturated inside and out with soot and constantly feared sudden death.
The smoke was essential, not only for the drama of the act, but to retain heat since no fire was carried on board. Clean air cools rapidly in an ascending balloon, not only by radiation but also by adiabatic expansion. The heat in the carbon particles is not affected by the change in atmospheric pressure with the ascent, so the smoke acts as a heat sink in addition to freshly “Sealing” the porous muslin fabric often used.
The 20th Century
In 1903 the Rev. John M. Bacon invented the forerunner of the "Modern hot air balloon" in England. While coal gas was plentiful and cheap locally, expeditionary forces had severe logistical problems with either producing hydrogen in the field or transporting heavy compressed gas cylinders for inflating observation balloons. Bacon conceived the concept of a military hot air observation balloon with available liquid petroleum vaporizing burners. He demonstrated the feasibility of the scheme by constructing a copper coiled “Roarer” burner with a pressurized fuel system and rigging it below a second hand cotton hot air balloon. His trials in the summer of 1903 were successful but he did not pursue it further in 1904 and died that Christmas. Major B. Baden Powell in his 1907 book “Ballooning As a Sport” writes “The Rev. J. M. Bacon then came forward as an ardent and a scientific aeronaut, and made many ascents; but he, too is gone!” without any mention of his hot air work.
During the 1930’s several more attempts were made to utilize petroleum fuels and even propane by German and Austrian pioneers. Again, their efforts were technically promising but they did not replace the gas sport balloon. The philosophy of ballooning entailed long flights at considerable altitude. Hydrogen and coal gas were plentiful, cheap and accepted fearlessly. The heavy cotton balloons with cumbersome fuel systems were not suited to the traditional ballooning routines. Even in England, where long duration gas flights were not possible for fear of the sea, there was no interest. They had the balloon, but did not take advantage of the technology in practice.
The Stratosphere
In 1931 Swiss Physicist Auguste Piccard physically inverted a 1905 invention of his and his twin brother, Jean, for a deep diving ship. That invention, not yet reduced to practice, proposed a heavy steel, controlled environment, cabin supported by an olive oil floatation “balloon”, which they called a “Bathyscaph” - Depth Ship. The 1931 invention consisted of an aluminum spherical pressure cabin and a one half million cubic foot lightweight rubberized cotton netless hydrogen balloon. This would make possible the first successful stratosphere flight. It carried him and his assistant, Paul Kipfer, to 51,775 feet on May 27th. Jean and his wife Jeannette went to 57,579 feet with a slightly larger duplicate which used a magnesium alloy cabin on October 23rd, 1934,. This completed the "Century of Progress" project in which Cdr. T.G.W. Settle had achieved 61, 237 feet in the same balloon. Settles ascension brought the FAI world altitude record to the United States where, for balloons, at least, it has stayed.
Jean and Jeannette Piccard’s balloon had several novel advances, the most significant being the remote control pyrotechnic ballasting system. Contrary to conventional concerns, he used blasting caps and TNT to cut cords outside the sealed capsule. Not just using explosives in an aircraft, but in one supported by hydrogen, was looked upon by his contemporaries with great trepidation. However, Stevens did follow his lead. His final successful flight only actually succeeded in clearing the protective cliffs of his launch site because he was able to use the explosives to drop ballast fast enough. Normal ballooning depended upon the “feel” of paying the sand out manually. Normal engineering would have used mechanical control cables, solenoid servo mechanisms or, perhaps, hydraulic devices. Without Piccard's pioneering use of explosives in his aircraft it probably never would have occurred to modern day space scientists. Such devices are common place on today’s spacecraft. <<URL link to Grissom sinking?>>
The Piccard 57,579 foot flight was followed by long time National Geographic contributor Captain A. Stevens and Captain Orville Anderson, both of the U.S. Army Air Corps, going to 72,395 feet. The flight was naturally sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the Army Air Corps. They used a 3,700,000 cubic foot rubberized cotton balloon of Auguste Piccard's design carrying a large magnesium alloy cabin. That balloon, the “Explorer II” was seven times the size of Piccard’s, but still with very similar fabric. The stress in the skin of the giant balloon was formidable resulting in repeated failures. Once, they barely escaped by parachute.
The Modern Balloon Industry
Jean Piccard realized that the giant single cell balloon had reached the end of the line. Larger balloons would require heavier fabric with diminishing returns. Latex sounding balloons were routinely carrying small loads to much greater heights and Piccard postulated that with a great cluster of those he could extend the limits of ballooning considerably. Thomas Johnson of the Franklin Institute suggested using fewer but larger cellophane balloons. Piccard designed a netless film balloon which substituted a conical skin section for the suspension system. The payload was attached directly to the base of the cone. By 1937 he and his students at the University of Minnesota, including one Robert Gilruth, later head of Project Mercury, had flown one of these unmanned balloons 600 miles, carrying an automatic ballast releasing device and radio instrumentation.
Piccard dreamed of a stratosphere flight with a cluster of film balloons but there was concern that they would tangle with each other. To test the concept he made a successful solo flight with an ensemble of 80 sounding balloons in 1937 which he named the “Pleiades”, after the constellation. ( Larey Walters of lawn chair notoriety was not, contrary to his belief, the first to use a cluster of sounding balloons.) After World War II, the U.S. Navy sponsored Piccard in a project to develop a balloon system designed to carry two men to 100,000 feet. Eighty 250,000 cubic foot film balloons were envisioned. The task was named “Project Pleiades” after the type of system planned, but was soon changed to “Project Helios”.
The Mechanical Division of General Mills, the cereal company, accepted the contract from The Office of Naval Research (ONR). DuPont “Polythene” film was chosen. Launches of individual test balloons were finally successful under Piccard's guidance. There was little faith that the apparently complicated task of rigging 80 of these at once could work and the project was abandoned. But the plastic balloon had been created and they constantly grew larger and larger as the polyethylene films improved, being used for numerous research projects. They came to be known as “Skyhooks”. Eventually there were five separate companies manufacturing balloons of this type.
The conversion of the seam closure tapes from their original simple joining task to back-up use in combination with heat welded seams and finally, with reinforcing filaments, to the primary structural load bearing factor enabled further size increases and advanced reliability. Their use also enabled the abandonment of the load ring in the mouth of the balloon. This facilitated the development of the “Natural Shape”.
Eventually a single cell plastic balloon carried Clifton, “Demi” McClure to almost 100,000 feet where he became the first person to clearly see the curvature of the Earth. Shortly, Joe Kittinger flew to 103,000 feet for his super-sonic free fall to test delayed high altitude parachute escapes for future astronauts. Mal Ross and Vic Prather attained the official FAI altitude at 113,000 feet. Nick Piantinida made the “Unofficial” record at 123,000 feet in an aborted parachute attempt. Non-manned flights carrying payloads of over 5,000 pounds to over 140,000 feet altitude under balloons as big as 40 million cubic feet are considered standard today. http://www.ravenind.com/Eng_Films/High_Alt_Balloons/webdoc4.htm
Superpressure Balloons
With the use of polyester film having a tensile strength of 20,000 pounds per square inch ( as compared to polyethylene at 600) super pressure balloons seemed possible. A series of contracts were awarded to the G. T. Schjeldahl Company of Northfield, Minnesota by the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories in the late 1950’s. After many close calls, but repeated failures, Don Piccard (son of Jean & Jeannette) was assigned the project. He theorized that the failures were because of self destructive tendencies of the brittle film. He used a lamination of two layers of very thin Mylar to make the first ever successful super pressure balloons. The laminated film construction had new softened characteristics that enabled the balloons to succeed. These balloons have been used by Vince Lally of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in his “GHOST” balloon project to carry instrumentation aloft for months at a time, continually circumnavigating the earth.
The active plastic balloon industry spawned a little known mysterious project for a new version of the covert “Silent Entry” programs which utilized orthodox British military training balloons. The use of orthodox netted gas free balloons with cumbersome wicker baskets was expensive and entailed difficult disposal of the equipment after landing in hostile territory. Steel suspension cables woven into the baskets had to be replaced with fiber ropes to enable burning of all the materials. Cost was also high. The disposable plastic gas balloons using helium or hydrogen became a viable alternative. However, even as Rev. Bacon had realized, a hot air balloon design could mitigate the logistics of compressed gas on far flung field operations.
Ed Yost and Wes Borgeson started a hot air balloon project at General Mills with a blow torch that used white gasoline and a polyethylene film envelope. Engineer Richard Schwoebel was given management of the project and used his previous extensive propane experience to lead it in that direction. One of his engineers, Tom Olson made a successful but short flight near New Brighton, Minnesota. With the formation of Raven Industries, the project was moved there and Yost developed a nylon balloon with a commercial kitchen propane vapor fed burner which he flew from Bruning, Nebraska on October 22, 1960. That historic flight covered three miles in fifteen minutes to usher in the “Modern Hot Air Balloon”. A second flight with a vaporizing liquid propane burner was made in November from the Stratobowl in South Dakota.
Yost received patents for the balloon with the vaporizing propane chambered burner, an extra large deflation port that operated like Jean Piccard’s blasting cap sandbag ballasting system and a two point suspension. The two point suspension was an important deviation from the standard single point suspension of Piccard’s plastic balloons and resembled Prof. Charles’s load ring with many points. The two point system provided clearance for the burner and its supporting trapeze. He also was awarded a patent on his system of parallel valves for cruise burning and blast burning to make quick corrections in altitude control. The chambered tar pot style burner was soon replaced with a vaporizing coil burner reminiscent of the Rev. Bacon’s “Roarer” which permitted intermittent operation without temperature shock fatigue.
Mark Semich in Santa Ana, California followed with a four point suspension and an inverting dumping deflation system reminiscent of gas balloon deflation prior to Wise’s rip panel invention. The important, stable, four point modification is the standard today.
The modern hot air balloon, developed for the silent entry use was soon found to be unsuited for covert operations because of the noise and light from the burners, and the contracts were completed. However, even given its shortcomings for military use, a whole new dawn of aerostatics was at hand. While Raven stopped sport balloon construction for several years, Mark Semich and Don Piccard continued the manufacture of hot air balloons for sport service. Semich soon gained the FAA’s first Type Certificate ever issued for a hot air free balloon. A descendant of that balloon was still in production under the Eagle brand name until quite recently.
Yost’s Raven hot air balloon, using strong and durable nylon fabric instead of the gossamer polyethylene, did not use load tapes. While the load tape had been an important factor in the success of the film balloon, it was unknown in fabric balloons. They were considered unnecessary for that service. With the presentation of the balloon for sport use, a longer life and safer design was required. Piccard reintroduced the full length load tapes found on plastic balloons which, coincidentally, afforded the opportunity for his invention his bulbous gore, pumpkin shape design.. The bulbous gore design provides greatly lowered skin stress coupled with flexibility under dynamic loads.
Tracy Barnes, of Statesville, North Carolina adapted Ruhulick’s Parachute Top venting system to make the most important advance in safety and control of hot air balloons since the rip panel. Barnes’ Parachute Top is even being used in gas balloons today. His novel three corner basket and three point suspension distinguish his balloons from the commonplace.
The first competition with the new hot air balloons was sanctioned by the St. Paul (Minnesota) Winter Carnival and held on Jean Piccard’s birthday, January 28th, 1962 from the frozen White Bear Lake. A spot landing to a point mutually agreed upon by the four pilots competing was chosen for the competition. While the Winter Carnival Association offered engraved brass plaques, the sponsors, Red Owl and Hamm's, presented a 12 inch diameter sterling silver Revere bowl, “The Jean Piccard Trophy for Thermal Balloons” (“Hot Air” having a poor image) to Tracy Barnes, the winner, establishing a high level of prestige for the new sport.
by Don Piccard
©2005