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Updated: July 17, 2025
The balloon used was a Montgolfier, or fire balloon, and, in spite of its ready inflation, MM. Godard considered it, from the difficulty of maintaining within it the necessary degree of buoyancy, far inferior to the gas inflated balloon. On the other hand, the Austrian Engineer Committee were of a contrary opinion.
Unfortunately, this development of the Montgolfier type never got a trial, for those who were to be spectators of the first flight grew exasperated at successive delays, and in the end, thinking that the balloon would never rise, they destroyed it.
"Today 21st of October, 1783, at the Chateau de la Muette, an experiment was made with the aerostatic machine of M. Montgolfier. The sky was clouded in many parts, clear in others the wind north-west. At mid-day a signal was given, which announced that the balloon was being filled. Soon after, in spite of the wind, it was inflated in all its parts, and the ascent was made.
Francesco Lana, with his 'aerial ship, stands as one of the first great exponents of aerostatics; up to the time of the Montgolfier and Charles balloon experiments, aerostatic and aerodynamic research are so inextricably intermingled that it has been thought well to treat of them as one, and thus the work of Lana, Veranzio and his parachute, Guzman's frauds, and the like, have already been sketched.
To fly or go slowly at will, to pass unshaken over rough and smooth alike, fording rivers without being wet, and mounting hills without climbing, this is indeed unmixed delight. It is the nearest approach to bird-life we seem capable of, since all the monster bubbles and flying fabrics that have been the sport of winds from the days of Montgolfier downwards have brought us no nearer to it.
Among the credulous the significance of the name of a people of Asia Minor, the Capnobates, 'those who travel by smoke, gave rise to the assertion that Montgolfier was not first in the field or rather in the air since surely this people must have been responsible for the first hot-air balloons.
The Montgolfier type of balloon, depending on hot air for its lifting power, was soon realised as having dangerous limitations. There was always a possibility of the balloon catching fire while it was being filled, and on landing there was further danger from the hot pan which kept up the supply of hot air on the voyage the collapsing balloon fell on the pan, inevitably.
George's Fields, and carried it back again before daylight, without waking any of the inhabitants; notwithstanding these exploits, I should have kept my balloon, and its properties a secret, if Montgolfier had not made the art of flying so public.
Though the invention of the balloon was only five months old, there were already two types on exhibition: the original Montgolfier, or fireballoon, inflated with hot air, and a modification by Charles, inflated with hydrogen gas. The mass of the French people did not regard these balloons with Franklin's serenity.
Some day dynamite may be harnessed to the balloon, which stands, or drifts, where it did with Montgolfier, and we may all become long-range projectiles; but even this age of hurry will contentedly wait a little for that.
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