Balloon Flight - Historical Development | Britannica

Charles and de Rozier join the race

With the news from Annonay, French inventor Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles, who knew that hydrogen was lighter than the hot-air smoke used by the Montgolfiers, realized that all he had to do to succeed was to make his balloon experiment on a larger scale. The first space race was on. On August 27, 1783, Charles launched an unmanned varnished-silk hydrogen balloon from Paris. It was attacked and destroyed by local villagers when it landed near Gonesse some 15 km (9 miles) to the northeast. The Montgolfiers countered by launching a hot-air balloon carrying a sheep, a duck, and a rooster from Versailles on September 19 to determine if the animals could survive in the open air at higher altitudes. The first person at the landing site of the menagerie balloon was Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, who would become the first balloon pilot.

While Charles was designing—and having engineering brothers Marie-Noël and Anne-Jean Robert build—a larger hydrogen balloon that could carry him aloft, de Rozier was teaching himself to fly a hot-air balloon by first going up with a restraining rope. Before Charles could get his gas balloon ready, de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d’Arlandes, persuaded the king to permit them to make the first manned free flight. On November 21 they went aloft over Paris. A little more than 20 minutes and 16 km (10 miles) later, they safely returned to Earth. Ten days later Charles made the first manned gas balloon ascension, accompanied by Marie-Noël Robert. On landing near Nesles, some 36 km (22 miles) away from the launch in Paris, Robert stepped out to let Charles make a second flight. The balloon ascended at a terrifying rate with Charles on the world’s first solo free flight. The balloon finally leveled out at about 3,000 meters (10,000 feet), and he was able to bring it down safely.