50 Fun Facts About Hot Air Balloons

What fuel do most modern hot air balloon burners burn?

It is stored as a liquid in pressure vessels much like forklift cylinders; each burner can produce 2 to 3 megawatts of heat.

In which Ardèche town did the paper-making Montgolfier brothers develop and first demonstrate their balloon?

Joseph got the idea watching laundry billow upward as it dried over a fire; he ran his first experiments while living in Avignon.

Who made the first untethered manned hot air balloon flight in Paris on 21 November 1783 with the Marquis d'Arlandes?

The 25-minute flight from the Château de la Muette covered about nine kilometres, and he had to douse embers scorching the fabric with a sponge and his coat.

King Louis XVI originally decreed that which group would be the first people to fly in a balloon?

De Rozier and d'Arlandes petitioned, with help from the Duchess de Polignac, for the honour to go to men of higher status.

Which three animals flew at Versailles on 19 September 1783, in the first balloon flight with living passengers?

The sheep, named Montauciel ('Climb-to-the-sky'), stood in for human physiology while the birds were controls; all landed safely after eight minutes.

What did Joseph Montgolfier first think was the buoyant part of fire lifting his test boxes?

He called the supposed special gas 'Montgolfier Gas' and so preferred smouldering fuel like wet straw and wool.

How long did the Montgolfiers' first public demonstration flight, on June 4, 1783, last?

The unmanned sackcloth-and-paper globe, held together by 1,800 buttons, covered two kilometres.

Which wallpaper maker decorated the Montgolfiers' 1783 balloons with zodiac signs and the king's face?

Étienne Montgolfier's own first tethered lift-off took place in the yard of the Réveillon workshop, most likely on October 15, 1783.

What was the first hot air balloonist attempting when he died in June 1785, aviation's first crash death?

His hybrid gas-plus-hot-air design, the Rozière balloon, is the type used two centuries later for round-the-world flights.

At which 1794 battle did the French make the first military use of a balloon, l'Entreprenant?

An aeronauts' corps had been created in the French army that April, but making hydrogen in the field proved a logistical headache.

Which Three Kingdoms strategist is said to have used sky lanterns for military signalling?

The Mongols later used these 'Kongming lanterns' at the Battle of Legnica in 1241, the first known ballooning in the Western world.

Which Portuguese Jesuit demonstrated the unmanned Passarola aerial device before King John V in 1709?

Some claim he invented the hot air balloon 74 years before the Montgolfiers, a view not generally accepted outside Portuguese-speaking countries.

Julian Nott flew a 1975 balloon to test whether which ancient people might have flown over their desert drawings?

He claimed to have used only materials and methods available to pre-Inca Peruvians a thousand years ago.

Which American made the first free flight of a modern burner-equipped hot-air balloon in 1960?

He took off from Bruning, Nebraska, on October 22, 1960 and stayed up for 1 hour 35 minutes; he also designed the classic teardrop envelope shape.

Which Sioux Falls company, co-founded by the modern hot air balloon's inventor, sold the first civilian one in 1961?

Its Vulcoon S50A was the first hot air balloon to receive an FAA airworthiness certificate.

What was the key engineering insight, in the 1950s, that made the modern hot air balloon practical?

Under the Montgolfier system the air was heated by a ground fire before release, so the balloon could only sink once launched.

What was the name of the first modern hot air balloon built in the United Kingdom, in 1967?

Bristol remains the world centre of the industry and hosts one of Europe's largest balloon fiestas every August.

Which company, based in Bristol, England, is the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons?

It also owns Lindstrand Balloons of Oswestry and absorbed Thunder and Colt; Spain's Ultramagic is second-largest.

Who set the hot air balloon altitude record of 21,027 metres in 2005, taking off from Mumbai?

The Indian textile magnate, chairman of the Raymond Group, landed 240 km south in Panchale; the previous record was Per Lindstrand's 19,811 m in 1988.

In 1991 Lindstrand and Branson flew the Virgin Pacific Flyer 7,672 km from Japan to which country?

Riding the jet stream, its 74,000 cubic metre envelope was the largest ever built for a hot air craft.

What ground speed did the Virgin Pacific Flyer record in 1991, the fastest ever for a manned balloon?

The balloon was designed to ride the trans-oceanic jet streams.

Which balloon made the first nonstop round-the-world flight in March 1999 with Piccard and Jones?

It left Château-d'Oex, Switzerland on March 1 and landed in the Egyptian desert after 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes.

What is a Rozière balloon, the hybrid type used for round-the-world flights?

The hot air heats the helium at night so it does not contract; hydrogen was tried in the 1780s and quickly abandoned as too dangerous.

How many burners did the balloon that first flew nonstop around the world in 1999 carry?

The crew added four extra fuel containers before launch, and needed them; the gondola is now at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington.

Which adventurer first flew solo nonstop around the world in a balloon, in 2002 on his sixth attempt?

He launched Spirit of Freedom from Northam, Western Australia and returned 13 days later; in 1995 he had also made the first solo balloon crossing of the Pacific.

Which Russian adventurer flew solo around the world in a balloon in a record 268 hours in 2016?

His time beat the 2002 solo record of 320 hours 33 minutes.

Double Eagle II, the first balloon to cross the Atlantic in 1978, took off from which US state?

Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman landed in a barley field at Miserey near Paris after 137 hours; souvenir hunters stole most of their logs.

In which US state is the world's largest balloon festival, held each October with over 500 balloons?

The Albuquerque fiesta began in April 1972 with just 13 balloons in a shopping-mall parking lot as part of a radio station's 50th birthday.

How many balloons took part in the first Albuquerque balloon fiesta in 1972?

Radio station KOB had asked to use Sid Cutter's balloon for its 50th birthday, then tried to beat the record gathering of 19 balloons set in England.

What are the striped launch directors at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta nicknamed?

They act as traffic cops so hundreds of balloons can leave the field in two safe waves starting around 7 am.

What is the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta's pre-sunrise launch with position lights called?

It began in 1978 when two California balloonists developed lighting that let them fly at night; other pilots use it to read the winds.

At which estate does the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta hold its 6am and 6pm mass ascents?

First held in 1979, the four-day free festival draws crowds of over 100,000 a day and forced the Clifton Suspension Bridge to close during events from 2004.

Sunrise balloon flights over 'fairy chimneys' are the signature draw of which Turkish region?

Most flights are centred on the town of Göreme.

Who was the first female professional balloonist, later Napoleon's 'Aeronaut of the Official Festivals'?

She specialised in night flights and, after her husband's death in 1809, made more than 60 ascents.

What ignited the gas in the first professional female balloonist's balloon during her fatal 1819 Paris exhibition?

Her craft crashed onto a house roof and she fell to her death, the first woman killed in an aviation accident.

Where did Blanchard and Jeffries land after the first balloon crossing of the English Channel in January 1785?

The crossing took about two and a half hours; Louis XVI awarded Blanchard a pension and hung the balloon in a Calais church.

Which US president witnessed the first balloon flight in the Americas, by Blanchard in 1793?

That same year Blanchard used a parachute to escape when his hydrogen balloon ruptured, having earlier tested it with a dog.

What is the disk-shaped flap atop a modern balloon, pulled open to release hot air, called?

Invented by Tracy Barnes, it can be opened briefly for a rapid descent and pulled fully open to collapse the balloon after landing.

What are the vertical fabric sections of a balloon envelope, running from throat to crown, called?

An envelope can have as few as 4 or as many as 24 or more, sewn together with load tapes that carry the basket's weight.

Balloon baskets are traditionally woven from which material?

They range from two-person size to baskets carrying thirty, often with internal partitions; the first FAA-certified balloon actually had an aluminium and fibreglass basket.

What is the typical maximum operating temperature of the air inside a nylon balloon envelope?

Nylon melts around 230 °C, but higher temperatures age the fabric faster; envelopes typically last 400 to 500 flying hours.

What is the instrument showing a balloon's rate of climb or descent called?

Balloons also carry altimeters and envelope thermometers; a GPS gives ground speed since an airspeed indicator would read zero.

Which law of physics explains why a hot air balloon floats?

Heated air is less dense than the surrounding air, so buoyancy pushes the envelope up exactly as it would an object in water.

Why are most balloon flights launched at dawn or a couple of hours before sunset?

Ground heating creates vertical air currents whose downdrafts can exceed a balloon's ability to climb.

In balloon competitions, what do pilots drop to prove how close they came to a target?

So-called balloon 'races' are really tests of accuracy, requiring pilots to read wind directions at different altitudes.

How does a balloon pilot steer, given that a hot air balloon has no rudder?

In the northern hemisphere the wind tends to turn eastward as altitude increases because of the Coriolis effect.

What is a 'Cloudhopper' or 'Hopper'?

With as little as 600 cubic metres of envelope, it is the smallest size; the most common size is about 2,800 cubic metres for 3 to 5 people.

What is a 'rag bag' in balloonist slang?

It is usually the sealing coating, not the fabric itself, that wears out and ends an envelope's flying life.

Which sport body has recognised hot air ballooning as the safest air sport in aviation?

NTSB data show fatalities are rare; of 11 fatal US accidents from 1997 to 2007, four involved power lines.

What is a hot air balloon that can be steered and propelled, rather than drifting with the wind, called?

They became a reality in the 1960s and were the first steerable air-buoyant vehicles using only hot air.