Story of Flight - Balloons

In 1709 a Brazilian Jesuit priest, Fr Laurenzo de Gusmao demonstrated before the King of Portugal that hot air balloons could fly. He demonstrated that his paper balloon, that had a small basket hanging below with fire, could fly. Much later, Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier, both brothers, demonstrated to the world that a hot air balloon was capable of carrying passengers. On September 19, 1783 a ram, a duck and a cock were loaded into the basket hung below a special paper balloon 15 m in diameter, and 23 m in height. The paper skin was reinforced with silk and coated with a chemical to prevent it from catching fire. In the presence of King Louis XVI and 130,000 spectators the 770-kg balloon filled with hot air rose freely and remained in air for seven minutes. On November 21, 1783 their two friends Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier went up in the air, in the Montgolfiere, as it was called, from castle La Muette near Versailles and flew across Paris a distance of 12 km in twenty five minutes. On November 21, 1983 India issued two stamps to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of this event. One stamp shows the Montgolfier balloon and the other shows the "Udan Katola", the first Indian hot air balloon. Udan Katola was designed, fabricated and successfully test flown at Safdarjang Airport, New Delhi in October 1973. Modern balloons use advanced light weight fabrics and a propane burner to heat the air. Incidentally, Ramchunder Chatterjee was the first aeronaut in India rising up in the balloon "The Viceroy" on April 10, 1889 from the gas works at Narkeldanga, Calcutta.