Most of us know the story of the two brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier who started hot air ballooning in France November 21st 1783.
Do you know the story of Pilâtre DeRosier? Mr DeRosier figured out you could fly a balloon using a lighter than air gas like Hydrogen or Helium. You did not need to use Hot Air to make the balloon fly. By creating a light weight silk bag and filling it with gas the balloon could carry people and you could use sand bags as ballast. As the gas slowly escaped from the balloon you could drop over some sand to compensate. If you wanted to go up you could drop even more sand and the balloon would ascend. Pull a string and let a little gas out of the balloon and you would go down.
One issue with these new gas balloons is that they would fly for a much longer duration than the Montgolfier balloons would. The Montgolfier balloons would cool off fairly rapidly and in the late 18th century they did not have a heat source powerful enough to keep the hot air balloon aloft. So they became extinct until the 1960's when modern technology created fuel systems and advanced burners to create enough heat to keep them aloft.
Another drawback to the early gas balloons is the distance they would travel. Often they would go many many miles from the launch site into areas where no one had ever witnessed a balloon. This would cause some pretty intense situations at the landing site. Many times the balloon would be destroyed and the occupants held hostage until they could explain their way out of captivity or share trinkets and champagne with the locals.
One of the habits Mr DeRosier developed over the years was any time he saw a town or a village he would fly down low and yell to the people he would see in the area! He would shout out "I am Pilâtre DeRosier" to everyone he saw. He became so famous that when the local towns people saw a balloon go by they would look up and say, "There goes Plitre" That is where the word PILOT comes from!
And now YOU know the REST OF THE STORY..
Note: The above story is complete fiction but it sounds good and a great one to tell your passengers after a flight...
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