Ever dream of flying in the air without a care in the world, feeling the wind on your face and watching your worries fade away as you are raised in the sky?
Being in a hot-air balloon will give you that experience. It's certainly always been on my list of things to try.
The hot-air balloon actually far predates other forms of air travel.
In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers, French paper manufacturers, constructed the first large-scale hot-air balloon.
Its initial living cargo wasn't people, though, but rather a menagerie of a sheep, a duck and a rooster, all of whom rode up over 1,000 feet in the air for about 10 minutes.
Only a few months later, French physician Pilatre De Rozier was part of a team making the first manned attempt to fly a hot-air balloon. They flew from the center of Paris for about 20 minutes, reaching an altitude of a few thousand feet.
Jean Pierre Blanchard and his American co-pilot John Jefferies made history by being the first to fly across the English Channel, two years later.
Up and Away
Over the past few centuries, the basic design of a hot-air balloon hasn't changed much. There are three main parts: a basket or gondola, which holds the passengers; the envelope, or the balloon itself, made either of nylon or polyester; and the burner, now usually propane-fueled, which heats the air used to propel the balloon upward. And don't worry about air escaping out of the hole at the bottom of the envelope -- as we all know, hot air rises.
How high can you go? "Every flight is different. Most balloons go from the tops of the trees to 3,000 feet in the air," says Lucas Hess, a pilot with the
U.S. Hot Air Balloon Team. He has been flying for about six years. It runs in the family; his grandfather also was a pilot.
Even though you can expect quite a view, you won't actually travel more than several miles from the departure point while on a ride with the U.S. Hot Air Balloon Team.
Pilots can control the altitude, either by turning up the burner (to rise) or opening a parachute valve at the top of the envelope (to descend), but otherwise, balloons are subject to the force of any winds. Since wind currents blow at different directions at different altitudes, though, pilots can use their vertical control to help direct the ride.
I know I'm a bit afraid of heights, so I ask Hess if the ride is bumpy. "It's very similar to standing on the ground, except you're floating. It is not turbulent or jarring," says Hess.
Danielle Sonnenberg
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