The French brothers, Joseph and
Etienne Montgolfier designed and built the first hot air balloons to carry
people.
Before the first powered flight , people were already up in the
air with flying machines.
But most of these were lighter-than-air balloons and airships , or
gliders.
1783 First in the air was the French scientist Francois Pilatre de
Rozier. He rose in a hot-
air balloon made by the brothers , Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier.
The balloon was tied
to the ground by a rope. A few weeks later, he and the Marquis d’Arlandes
made the first
free balloon flight, 8km over Paris, in another of the Montgolfier
Brothers’ balloons.
1852 The first airship flight was by Frenchman Henry Giffard. Coal
gas filled the cigar-
shaped balloon, and a steam engine turned the propeller .
1900 The golden age of airships began in 1900 with the first of the
famous Zeppelins .
But there was a series of disasters, as the light hydrogen gas in the
airships caught fire, or
their fragile frames were torn by storms .
1937 The giant airship HINDENBERG crashed in flames, killing 36 people,
and the
airship era finally ended.
