The Fascinating History of So The Balloons Had To Be

Welcome to another journey through aviation history! In this article, we explore some incredible early developments in aeronautics.

Key Takeaways

• so the balloons had to be larger, however, coal gas was far more readily available
• and the local gas works sometimes provided a special lightweight formula for ballooning events. ===

The Full Story

so the balloons had to be larger, however, coal gas was far more readily available and the local gas works sometimes provided a special lightweight formula for ballooning events. === Airships === Airships were originally called "dirigible balloons" and are still sometimes called dirigibles today. Work on developing a steerable (or dirigible) balloon continued sporadically throughout the 19th century. The first powered, controlled, sustained lighter-than-air flight is believed to have taken place in 1852 when Henri Giffard flew 15 miles (24 km) in France, with a steam engine-driven craft. Another advancement was made in 1884, when the first fully controllable free-flight was made in a French Army electric-powered airship, La France, by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs. The 170-foot (52 m) long, 66,000-cubic-foot (1,900 m3) airship covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes with the aid of an 8½ horsepower electric motor. However, these aircraft were generally short-lived and extremely frail. Routine, controlled flights did not occur until the advent of the internal combustion engine. The first aircraft to make routine controlled flights were non-rigid airships (sometimes called "blimps".) The most successful early pioneering pilot of this type of aircraft was the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont who effectively combined a balloon with an internal combustion engine. On 19 October 1901, he flew his airship Number 6 over Paris from the Parc de Saint Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and back in under 30 minutes to win the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize. Santos-Dumont went on to design and build several aircraft. The subsequent controversy surrounding his and others' competing claims with regard to aircraft overshadowed his great contribution to the development of airships. At the same time that non-rigid airships were starting to have some success, the first successful rigid airships were also being developed. These were far more capable than fixed-wing aircraft in terms of pure cargo-carrying capacity for decades. Rigid airship design and advancement was pioneered by the German count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Construction of the first Zeppelin airship began in 1899 in a floating assembly hall on Lake Constance in the Bay of Manzell, Friedrichshafen. This was intended to ease the starting procedure, as the hall could easily be aligned with the wind. The prototype airship LZ 1 (LZ for "Luftschiff Zeppelin") had a length of 128 m (420 ft), was driven by two 10.6 kW (14.2 hp) Daimler engines and balanced by moving a weight between its two nacelles. Its first flight, on 2 July 1900, lasted for only 18 minutes, as LZ 1 was forced to land on the lake after the winding mechanism for the balancing weight had broken. Upon repair, the technology proved its potential in subsequent flights, bettering the 6 m/s speed attained by the French airship La France by 3 m/s, but could not yet convince possible investors. It was several years before the Count was able to raise enough funds for another try. The German airship passenger service known as DELAG (Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) was established in 1910. Although airships were

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This article was adapted from public domain historical archives to bring you accessible, plain English history.