LUKE HONEY'S Enthusiasms

On an autumn day in 1783, a sheep, a duck, and a rooster became the first living creatures to fly in a hot air balloon.

Under the supervision of the daring Montgolfier brothers (the sons of a wealthy paper manufacturer) and in the presence of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France at Versailles, the balloon rose some 1,700 feet in the air and travelled for eight minutes, landing two miles away in the forest of Vaucresson, where two surprised gamekeepers discovered the crashed balloon. Despite the dodgy arrival, all the passengers landed safely. It was a remarkable feat. Previously, scientists thought that atmospheric altitude might be dangerous for the physical body: this flight helped to reassure the nervous.

The Montgolfier brothers constructed the balloon with the help of the royal wallpaper manufacturer, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, who then built a further balloon to carry a human. Spherical in shape and made from a cotton cloth backed with paper inside (coated with alum to protect it from fire), the Montgolfiers' balloon was launched from a raised platform or dais, which contained a well stacked with straw, wool and old leather shoes. Once lit, the fire produced a dense smoke, and the balloon began to rise.

The brothers called this 'Montgolfier Gas', not realising that it was the hot air that caused the lift, not the smoke.