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The freedom to fly like a bird has always been a quest of man.
Leonardo da Vinci put that dream to paper in the 15th century designing several contraptions to get a person off the ground. The aerial screw, ornithopters, parachute and the glider can all be traced to drawings by this brilliant man.
Ballooning became the first practical way to get anything up and safely back.
Living in 1783 Paris, the Montgolfier brothers are considered the Yuri Gagarin of ballooning. Their family owned a paper manufacturing business where the brothers observed ashes from paper being burned rising. Off they went to work designing the first paper balloon using smoke as the propellant. What they didn’t realize, it was the heat that gave lift.
After several prototype failures with a few successes involving different gasses and materials, the brothers moved on and were anxious to put something alive in the air. Using a small basket, in went one sheep, who couldn’t jump, a rooster who could jump out but would not go very far, and a duck who could fly off whenever. After a short flight they all stayed in the basket, none worse for wear. So says Becky Woodland, the Director of the National Balloon Museum and U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame in Indianola, Iowa.
OK, I’ll ask it: “What in the world is the National Balloon Museum and Hall of Fame doing in South Central Iowa?”
It seems in 1970 the National Hot Air Balloon Championship preliminaries were held in Indianola. It was such a success the Championship started taking place there every year. Participants needed a place to store their balloons and equipment, so boom, a museum was born.
Back to Paris where the Montgolfier brothers were creating quite a stir. Now King Louis XVI was involved, and the next flight was scheduled to be at the Palace of Versailles with his court. The King thought the first person to defy gravity should be a condemned prisoner because then, it wouldn’t matter if it failed. Etienne Montgolfier would have none of it; up he went, becoming the first man in history to rise off the earth in a tethered balloon.
The “sport” moved quickly after that triumph. Silk was found to be the right material for the ships, strong and light but expensive. Hot air replaced various gasses after several more catastrophes.
Napoleon was watching, too. He wanted to adapt this new technology into not only an observation post but an attack ship. Strapping bombs to the basket, this could be used as the first aerial assault vehicle in history. Nice idea, but it never got off the ground.
Of course, as with all great inventions, ballooning became better and safer, higher, faster and navigable to a point, too.
The next war to significantly use ballooning was the U.S. Civil War. Each side had balloons but the Union’s development was more advanced. Mostly deployed for observation, there is a good photo of a balloon being inflated during the battle of Fair Oaks by famed photographer Mathew Brady. The situation has to be right in battle for a balloon, a siege or standoff where troops would be “dug in'' for a duration is needed.
In World War I the balloon population multiplied for both the Allies and Axis powers. Trench warfare could establish stalemates for months. Reconnaissance was important to learn troop movements in advance of a possible attack.
Then along came the Zeppelin; as innovation continued, balloons now carried passengers from Europe to the United States and back, in what was thought to be a safe and luxurious fashion.
On May 6, 1937, that all changed. The Hindenburg airship was making its 35th trip across the Atlantic seeking to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Having gone thousands of uneventful miles, hovering just 300 ft. over its docking birth, the great ship caught fire. Within one minute, the hovering craft was entirely engulfed by flames and crashed to earth. Thirty-five of the 97 passengers and crew on board were incinerated. When you see the newsreel it’s hard to imagine how many actually escaped, “Oh, the humanity!”
What caused the Hindenburg to burst into flames? No one knows for sure; gas leakage, an electrical discharge, or sabotage are all possibilities. It did end this transatlantic odyssey.
In 1940, London positioned balloons over the city as an air defense in the Battle of Britain. Some balloons were tethered together with cable to snag a low flying bomber. This may have happened a few times, but the balloons cause the Luftwaffe to drop their loads at a higher altitude influencing accuracy.
In times of peace, ballooning became a record seeking sport as higher, farther, faster continued. Billionaire Steve Fossett, a commodity trader who no doubt loved risk, was the first person to circumvent the earth solo in an airplane and was an avid balloonist who held the world record for speed in a balloon at 61.7mph. He’s also in the Hall of Fame.
There are over 5,000 registered balloon pilots in the United States today, mostly for recreational use, except the Chinese!
From January 28 - February 4, 2023, a sophisticated intelligence balloon originating in China, drifted over parts of Alaska, Canada and much of the continental United States. I dubbed the balloon, “What just happened!” To fly over an enemy’s territory collecting data as you go, I don’t think any other espionage effort has been as successful since Mata Hari.
If you want to do something totally different, consider heading to Indianola, Iowa, from July 25 - August 2, for the 2025 National Balloon Classic. There will be over 100 balloons in the air for a sight rarely seen. Come on up, catch the bug…the sky’s the limit!
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You can find more of Bob’s work including his Bob Ford’s History, Mystery and Lore podcast, on his website, bobfordshistory.com and on YouTube.
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