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Balloon
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The balloon is a large spherical, pliant bag made of varnished
silk, rubber, or other suitable non-porous material. It
generally contains either hot air or a gas that is lighter than
air. The earliest balloons were filled with hot air and often
carried a brazier to replenish the supply continuously. Modern
balloons are filled with hydrogen or helium. Helium is
non-flammable, but it is twice as heavy as hydrogen and has
seven per cent less lifting power. For sport ballooning, hot-air
balloons are kept aloft with butane or propane burners.
Let’s now take a look at the first balloon flights.
In the year 1783, two French brothers, Jacques Étienne
and Joseph Michel Montgolfier, sent up a balloon filled with hot
air. French physicist, chemist and aeronaut, Jacques Alexandre
César Charles, also released one filled with hydrogen, which
made a successful two-hour flight. The distance covered by the
flight was forty-three kilometers.
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The year 1783 also witnessed the first actual balloon ascent by
human beings. French physicist Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier
made flights near Paris, first in a captive balloon and later in
a free balloon. The first balloon crossing of the English
Channel was made two years later by French aeronaut Jean Pierre
Blanchard, who was accompanied by an American.
Exactly ten years later, in 1793, the first balloon ascent in
America was made at Philadelphia on January 9. Years later, in 1836,
The Great Balloon of Nassau, with a capacity of 2410 cubic
meters, sailed 800 kilometers from London to Weilburg, Germany, in a
span of eighteen hours.
The
practical utility of balloons came in handy during the Franco-German
War of 1870, when they were used extensively by both armies for
military observation, as also during the First World War.
The
record for the flight of piloted balloons was set in 1914, when the
balloon Berliner traveled from Bitterfeld in Germany, to
Perm in Russia, a distance of nearly 3052 kilometers!
Ballooning as a sport, began with the Gordon Bennett Balloon Trophy
Races, an annual contest. The races were held unfailingly each year,
since its inception (in 1906), except during the First World War. It
was, however, discontinued when the Second World War began.
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A hot air balloon |
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The
highest unpiloted research balloon flight was made from Chico,
California, in October 1972. The balloon soared reaching an altitude
of 51,850 meters.
Several aeronauts
have made high ascents in balloons. In 1931 the Swiss physicist
Auguste Piccard ascended into the stratosphere in a spherical,
airtight, metal cabin suspended from a specially constructed,
hydrogen-filled balloon of 14,000 cubic meter capacity. He reached
an altitude of 15,797 meters. The following year, he touched 16,507
meters. Later two American army officers, Orvil Anderson and Albert
William Stevens, soared to a height of 22,080 meters. Records were
created and broken. On May 4, 1961, Americans Malcolm Ross and
Victor Prather set a record of 34,679 meters on a flight launched
from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.
The
first transatlantic balloon flight ended on August 17, 1978. It set
a distance record of 5000 kilometers and an endurance record of 137
hours and six minutes. Double Eagle II, a helium filled
balloon piloted by three American businessmen took off from Presque
Isle, Maine, on August 11 and landed in Miserey, France. The first
solo transatlantic crossing was made in September 1984.
All
the balloons used in these long-distance rides were hybrid gas and
hot-air balloons called Roziers, named after the type of balloon
Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier first used in 1873. What was used in
these balloons was a lighter-than-air gas bag filled with helium,
with a hot-air bag directly underneath. Sunlight during the day
heats the helium, causing the balloon to rise. At night, the colder
atmosphere causes the helium to compress and the hot air bag below
is heated to warm the helium and maintain altitude. This arrangement
requires little ballast and allows the balloonists to achieve high
altitudes more effectively. |
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