Montgolfier, Joseph

Montgolfier, Joseph (1740-1810), French inventor.

The brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier were paper-bag makers and in 1782 they began to experiment with paper-bags filled with hot air.

Afterwards, they produced the first hot-air balloon. It was shaped like a ball measuring ninety feet (thirty meters) around and made of linen lined with paper.

At Annonay on 5 June, 1783, the brothers fastened a fire under an opening in this balloon and set it free. It rose to over 5,905 feet (1,800 meters) and came down 7,598 feet (2,316 meters) away from the place where it went up.

On 24 September, 1783, the brothers appeared before King Louis XVI at the Palace of Versailles. They sent up a cock, a duck and a sheep in a wicker cage under a balloon and these creatures came down alive.

Later Montgolfier balloons were used for the first ascents by men. On October 15, 1783, Pilatre de Rozier went up seventy-nine feet (twenty-four meters) in a balloon on the end of a rope.

On November 21, 1783, de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes went up to 492 feet (150 meters) in a free balloon and traveled 5.5 miles (9 km) over Paris in 25 minutes.

See Charles Coulston Gillispie The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation, 1783-1784