Who began flying?

Man has always longed to fly. In the late fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci was working on the problem of flying and a century later, a Jesuit priest from Brescia in northern Italy, suggested using the ascending force of the lightest gases present in the air. In 1782, the Neopolitan, Tibero Cavallo, filled a balloon with hydrogen and carried out some laboratory tests.

In France, a balloon full of hot air was publicly launched on 4 June 1783 at Annonay by the Montgolfier brothers, Etienne and Joseph. They repeated the experiment with a larger balloon at Versailles on 19 September 1783 when a hen, a sheep and a duck were the first living creatures to go up in a ‘Montgolfier balloon’. On 21 November the Marquis of Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier, flew across from Paris, on board a hot air balloon.

The following month, December 1783, hydrogen was substituted for hot air. The physical J.H.C Charles with M.N Robert made the first manned flight using hydrogen.

 

Picture Credit : Google