The first hot air balloon flight

Who was the first Russian in space? A dog named Laika. The first American? A monkey named Ham. Animals always preceded humans in the skies purchase. Always! And it’s still the case for the first inhabited flight. On September 19th of 1783 Skyrise the sheep, Quack the duck and Cock-a-doodle-doo the rooster, three steel-nerved test pilots, flew off the solid ground.

 

One may say that the too last ones didn’t need a hot-air balloon to fly, but for the sake of a first flight, why not having experimented test pilots? Regardless, it was the Science Academy who’d chosen the candidates and finally had opted for Skyrise thanks to his physiology very close to the humans one. That way, if he survived, we’d know if the trip was thinkable to be tried with humans.

Of curious people had started to gather in the first square of Versailles Palace where the Montgolfier brothers’ machine had been settled to operate the test flight.
In front of the entire royal family, Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier demanded to start a great fire under the balloon powered by wet straw, wool, and even old leather boots, in order to produce the maximum amount of smoke, as at that time we would still believe that smoke lifts objects and not hot air. Also note that the fire was located on the floor, for the inventers hadn’t figured yet the possibility to hang the heat source to the balloon.
Then they joined the balloon to the round wicker basket where the three test pilots went together with great composure.

 

The 62 feet balloon rose to the 1600 feet of altitude where a western wind got it off on a sidetrack for 27 seconds. A tear then occurred in the envelope of the balloon which begun to quickly lose height and fell down into the wood of Vaucresson, 2.3 miles away. The flight lasted only eight minutes.
After hitting a branch while getting down to the earth, the cage opened up freeing the three heroes. The sheep and the duck were safe-and-sounds, but the rooster had a pelted wing, probably because of a kick from the sheep through the flight. The trio then returned to Versailles under the cheers of the crowd, and Louis XVI rewarded them by offering them board and lodging ad aeternam in the menagerie of the