A
gas balloon is any
balloonA balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
that stays aloft due to being filled with a gas less dense than air or
lighter than airLighter than air refers to gases that are buoyant in air because they have densities lower than that of air .Some of these gases are used as lifting gases in lighter-than-air aircraft, which include free balloons, moored balloons, and airships, to make the whole craft, on average, lighter than air...
(such as
heliumHelium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
or
hydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
). A gas balloon may also be called a
Charlière for its inventor, the Frenchman
Jacques CharlesJacques Alexandre César Charles was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.Charles and the Robert brothers launched the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon in August 1783, then in December 1783, Charles and his co-pilot Nicolas-Louis Robert ascended to a height of about...
. Today, familiar gas balloons include large
blimpA blimp, or non-rigid airship, is a floating airship without an internal supporting framework or keel. A non-rigid airship differs from a semi-rigid airship and a rigid airship in that it does not have any rigid structure, neither a complete framework nor a partial keel, to help the airbag...
s and small rubber party balloons. Blimps have displaced
zeppelinA Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
s (which are not balloons) as the dominant form of
airshipAn airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
.
History
The first gas balloon made its flight in August 1783. Designed by professor
Jacques CharlesJacques Alexandre César Charles was a French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.Charles and the Robert brothers launched the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon in August 1783, then in December 1783, Charles and his co-pilot Nicolas-Louis Robert ascended to a height of about...
and Les Frères Robert, it carried no passengers or cargo. On 1 December 1783 their second hydrogen-filled balloon made a manned flight piloted by Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert, 10 days after the first manned flight in a Montgolfier
hot air balloonThe hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...
.
The next project of Jacques Charles and 'Les frères Robert' was
La Caroline, an elongated steerable craft that followed
Jean Baptiste MeusnierJean Baptiste Marie Charles Meusnier de la Place was a French mathematician, engineer and Revolutionary general. He is best known for Meusnier's theorem on the curvature of surfaces, which he formulated while he was at the École Royale du Génie . He also discovered the helicoid...
's proposals for a dirigible balloon, incorporating internal
ballonnet (air cells), a rudder and a method of propulsion. On September 19, 1784 the brothers and M. Collin-Hullin flew for 6 hours 40 minutes, covering 186 km from Paris to
BeuvryBeuvry is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A suburban town immediately southwest of Béthune, southwest of Lille, at the junction of the D945, D72 and N41 roads...
near
BéthuneBéthune is a city in northern France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department.-Geography:Béthune is located in the former province of Artois. It is situated South-East of Calais, West of Lille, and North of Paris.-Landmarks:...
. This was the first flight over 100 km.
Gas balloons remained popular throughout the age before powered flight. They could fly higher and further than hot-air balloons, but were more dangerous as they were usually filled with hydrogen gas (which, unlike helium, could be easily mass-manufactured). Gas balloons were used in the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
by Thaddeus Lowe. They were used in the
Napoleonic WarsThe Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
(to very limited extent), and throughout the 19th century by hobbyists and show performers such as the
BlanchardsJean-Pierre Blanchard , aka Jean Pierre François Blanchard, was a French inventor, most remembered as a pioneer in aviation and ballooning....
.
Gas ballooning has been popular in Europe, most notably in Germany, using hydrogen as a lifting gas. Several gas balloon clubs exist throughout the country with well organized launch sites and well defined infrastructure making flights relatively easy to do.
Rough estimates show 150 active gas pilots in Europe. In stark contrast, gas ballooning in the USA might have at most, 30 active pilots who typically fly only once a year at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October. This is primary due to the extraordinarily high cost of helium (~$8,000 for a single flight as of 2008), the lifting gas that most American pilots must use due to the design of their balloons. This is starting to change with an introduction of hydrogen as a lifting gas, but still there are only a handful of hydrogen-rated balloons in the country. The German gas community has been a valuable resource in helping the US pilots gain skills in flying gas balloons and working with hydrogen as a lifting gas. Many of the US gas pilots have been, and are, currently doing training flights in Germany.
Records
The altitude record for a manned balloon flight was set at 34.7 kilometers on May 4, 1961 by
Malcolm RossMalcolm D. Ross was a Captain in the United States Naval Reserve , an atmospheric scientist, and a balloonist who set several records for altitude and scientific inquiry, with more than 100 hours flight time in gas balloons by 1961. Along with Lieutenant Commander Victor A...
and
Victor PratherLieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather Jr. was an American flight surgeon famous for taking part in "Project RAM", a government project to develop the space suit.-Life:...
in a balloon launched from the deck of the in the
Gulf of MexicoThe Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
.
The altitude record for an unmanned balloon is 53.0 kilometres. It was reached by a Fujikura balloon with a volume of 60 thousand cubic metres, launched in May 2002 from
Sanrikuis a historical region of Japan on the northeastern side of the island of Honshu, corresponding to today's Aomori, Iwate and parts of Miyagi Prefecture...
,
Iwateis the second largest prefecture of Japan after Hokkaido. It is located in the Tōhoku region of Honshū island and contains the island's easternmost point. The capital is Morioka. Iwate has the lowest population density of any prefecture outside Hokkaido...
, Japan. This is the greatest height ever obtained by an atmospheric vehicle. Only
rocketA rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
s, rocket planes, and
ballisticBallistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...
projectiles have flown higher.
On other planets
The Russian
space probeA robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...
s
Vega 1Vega 1 is a Soviet space probe part of the Vega program. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier Venera craft...
and
Vega 2Vega 2 is a Soviet space probe part of the Vega program. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier Venera craft. They were designed by Babakin Space Center and constructed as 5VK by Lavochkin at Khimki...
each dropped a helium balloon with scientific experiments into the
atmosphere of VenusThe atmosphere of Venus is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K , while the pressure is 93 bar. The Venusian atmosphere supports opaque clouds made of sulfuric acid, making optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface impossible...
in 1985. The balloons first
entered the atmosphereAtmospheric entry is the movement of human-made or natural objects as they enter the atmosphere of a celestial body from outer space—in the case of Earth from an altitude above the Kármán Line,...
and descended to about 50 km, then inflated for level flight. Otherwise the flight was uncontrolled. Each balloon relayed wind and atmospheric conditions for 46 hours of a possible 60-hour electric battery
power budgetIn telecommunication, a power budget is the allocation, within a system, of available transmitter power output to achieve the desired effective radiated power, among the various functions that need to be performed....
.
See also
- Gordon Bennett Cup
The Gordon Bennett Cup is the world's oldest gas balloon race, and is "regarded as the premier event of world balloon racing" according to the Los Angeles Times. Referred to as the "Blue Ribbon" of aeronautics, the first race started from Paris, France, on September 30, 1906...
- famous long-distance gas balloon race
- Tethered helium balloon
A tethered helium balloon is a helium-filled gas balloon which is tethered to the ground, or to a road vehicle, by a steel rope and raised and lowered by a winch.- Tethered or Static Helium Balloon:...
- Double Eagle II
Double Eagle II, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman, became the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed 17 August 1978 in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours 6 minutes after leaving Presque Isle, Maine....
- first manned balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean
- Larry Walters
Lawrence Richard Walters, nicknamed "Lawnchair Larry" or the "Lawn Chair Pilot", was an American truck driver who took flight on July 2, 1982 in a homemade airship. Dubbed Inspiration I, the "flying machine" consisted of an ordinary patio chair with 45 helium-filled weather balloons attached to it...
- used a lawn chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons to rise to 16000 feet (4,876.8 m)
- Sky anchor
A sky anchor is a system of two balloons in tandem, with a "zero-pressure" lifting gas balloon tethered to a superpressure balloon "anchor". The gas balloon is filled with a lifting gas and provides the buoyancy, while the superpressure balloon is filled with air, and pressurized to provide the...
- Five Weeks in a Balloon
Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen is an adventure novel by Jules Verne.It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with...
by Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
External links