- Montgolfier, Joseph-Michel
- SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 26 August 1740 Vidalon-lès-Annonay, Franced. 26 June 1810 Balaruc-les-Bains, France[br]French ballooning pioneer who, with his brother Jacques-Etienne (b. 6 January 1745 Vidalon-lès-Annonay, France; d. 2 August 1799, Serriers, France), built the first balloon to carry passengers on a "free" flight.[br]Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier were papermakers of Annonay, near Lyon. Joseph made the first experiments' after studying smoke rising from a fire and assuming that the smoke contained a gas which was lighter than air: of course, this lighter-than-air gas was just hot air. Using fine silk he made a small balloon with an aperture in its base, then, by burning paper beneath this aperture, he filled the balloon with hot air and it rose to the ceiling. Jacques-Etienne joined his brother in further experiments and they progressed to larger hot-air balloons until, by October 1783, they had constructed one large enough to lift two men on tethered ascents. In the same month Joseph-Michel delivered a paper at the University of Lyon on his experiments for a propulsive system by releasing gas through an opening in the side of a balloon; unfortunately, there was not enough pressurefor an effective jet. Then, on 21 November 1783, the scientist Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes ascended on a "free" flight in a Montgolfier balloon. They departed from the grounds of a château in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris on what was to be the world's first aerial journey, covering 9 km (5/2 miles) in 25 minutes.Ballooning became a popular spectacle with initial rivalry between the hot-air Montgolfières and the hydrogen-filled Charlières of J.A.C. Charles. Interest in hot-air balloons subsided, but was revived in the 1960s by an American, Paul E. Yost. His propane-gas burner to provide hot-air was a great advance on the straw-burning fire-basket of the Montgolfiers.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsLégion d'honneur.Further ReadingC.C.Gillispie, 1983, The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation 1783–1784, Princeton, NJ (one of the publications to commemorate the bicentenary of the Montgolfiers).L.T.C.Rolt, 1966, The Aeronauts, London (describes the history of balloons). C.Dollfus, 1961, Balloons, London.JDS
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.
