I am aware I stuffed up the pronunciation of a dozen things, Fleurus included. For once there wasn't a silent "s" it seemed... F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
1st decent summary of lighter than air flight I have watched! My Engineering soul enjoyed this brief summary glimpse of the past immensely. This video is genuinely praiseworthy & wait in anticipation for the sequel. I thought I'd have to point out a mistake or 2 but have no complaint that comes to mind surprisingly (Rex Hangers)
First off, I’d like to thank you for a wonderful video! For future reference, however, there is a correction I’d like for you to be made aware of. Ballonets (the original ones, at least) aren’t really used for controlling the volume of lifting gas and thereby affecting the lift directly. Rather, they’re used for the maintenance of the envelope’s pressure and trim, which is to say, its controllability and also its ability to ascend with a fuller, more aerodynamically stable profile without needing to vent gas as it does so to prevent rupture. In other words, it keeps the balloon from getting dangerously floppy, and gives it a much higher ceiling. The static weight of air in the ballonet _does_ have some tiny effect on the effective weight of the balloon, but this is negligible compared to the difference in external air pressure and density, and indeed differences in temperature. Likewise, ballonets have historically been incapable of compressing the lifting gas to any appreciable degree beyond simply maintenance of the envelope’s aerodynamic shape, certainly not to the pressures necessary for control of static heaviness (COSH) which has only recently been successfully demonstrated by testbed hybrid and conventional airships for DARPA. Namely, a modified Sky Dragon airship and the project PELICAN hybrid airship.
Will you do some "they never flew" video on the even earlier attempts at flying? Icarus is a myth, probably, but it seems to have been on people's minds for a while...
This video probably won’t have as much views as the next ww2 fighter, but it is 100x more valuable in my opinion. Balloons are way too often overlooked and left out because they didn’t carry guns, but that doesn’t make them less significant in history. Thank you for making this video!
This video is an absolute gem! I've long been interested in aviation, but the story nearly always begins with the Wright Brothers, with everything that preceded them either omitted or dismissed with a few brief mentions. This video helps to fill in much of that huge gap in my knowledge -- such as the fact that von Zeppelin was involved in the American Civil War, and had his introduction to ballooning there! This is the sort of history that makes this channel such a joy to watch. Thank you, Rex!
Agreed. Early accounts of manned flight usually limit discussion of balloons and airships to a few pages, and describe them more as a series of unconnected efforts rather than the progression of a class of technology.
@@madhukarjonathanminj2772 Boyle's Law annoys me to no end, when I shower. A pox upon him. We don't need his "Junk" science, that affects our "Junk". Double shower curtain is the only answer for his transgressions. I don't need to be enveloped and assaulted by a $5 piece of plastic, when I'm just trying to get the hell on with my day. Very nice video, as usual, man!
Thank you for this video! My parents are hot air balloon pilots and I've been flying all my life! 55,000 cubic feet is pretty small compared to modern hot air balloons (typically 77,000 cu ft+), but the baskets are also significantly heavier these days which makes sense. I would like to see you continue through lighter than air flight, on to the first modern propane-fueled balloon- as it was also a military project for the US navy!
surprisingly hard to shoot them down. Due to lack of oxygen, it could be tough to get them to burn. Pilots even tried tracer rounds, incendiary rounds, and rockets in order to get them to burn. One of the best and most famous balloon hunters was Frank Luke Jr. As far as I can tell, he never told anyone how he was able to so reliably destroy balloons.
On a funny and vaguely relevant note, there exists records of balloon based shenaniganry in a betting book at Brooks of London, where quote "Ld. Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Ld. Derby, to receive 500 Gs whenever his lordship [has sex with] a woman in a balloon one thousand yards from the Earth." The entry is dated 1785, two years post first Montgolfier flight. The fact that it only took two years for someone to ponder the mile high club is extraordinary.
I had a friend in high school who was absolutely convinced that airships were the future of aviation. Back then (late 70's/early 80's) there always seemed to be articles popping up in aviation- or technology-related publications about how the next generation of airship innovations were going to finally make them a viable commercial alternative to airplanes. Still waiting...
Still happening! Every decade, at least, the 'airships are future of aviation' articles pop up again. But, even when it seems to make sense, it still never happens!
@@paulhaynes8045 Now we also have hybrid plane/airships vehicle. A spanish company (Air Nostrum) have actually bought some Airlander 10 for its national lines. They should enter in active service around 2026 and carry a hundred of passengers each. They are more complex to operate than airplanes, but require lighter infrastructures and consume far less fuel for the same carried mass.
Great video ! I grew up in Annonay where the Montgolfier brothers invented the first balloon. Every year in June they flew a reproduction of the first unmanned flight. In 1983 they had a week long celebrations for the 200 years birthday with many flights and such. I even had school friends descendants of the De Montgolfier. You missed that the first flight was tested with a couple farm animals. Pretty good pronunciation of French words.
Wrong, hang gliders were a know thing. Where do you think the Wrighfs got their aerofoil data for their early flights? Data that they worked out was flawed.
It should be pointed out that some very impressive (and dangerous) altitude records were set by aeronauts. British balloonists James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell ascended to over 34,000 feet, the very edge of the stratosphere - in 1862!
I love the paintings and sketches you've collected for this video. Beautiful and often full of wonder. Great article. I've always been a fan of lighter than air. But I still love watching your videos on weird and googly aircraft.
thousands of people took rides in Captive balloons in many Parris exhibitions 1890's onwards, where VERY large ballons with very large Gondolas were tethered to whinches and the public could pay to ride up to several hundred feet to see Paris (and also in many other cities) .
This was completely fascinating to hubby and me. Learned a great deal. So much work to plan, write, assemble, edit, narrate, and add graphics to.... can't imagine the time spent. What a marvelous documentary!
Hi I live near Cardington and a relative worked on the R100 and R101. My mother saw the Graf Zeppelin in the 30s on a UK tour and I saw the skyship fly several times and the sad wreck. It was quite a storm.
The centre-lowest of one of the engravings of the Paris encirclement depicts the projection of microfilm onto a screen. The carrying of thousands of letters on microfilm was a fascinating innovation.
This video is nostalgia, since I spent much of my childhood reading about the subject. It's worth mentioning that John Wise, an American balloonist in the nineteenth century, developed a technique of rapidly deflating a balloon at altitude, allowing it to collapse into a parachute that then descended safely to the ground.
Excellent video with great information. Lighter then air flight is an immense subject that is a lot of times glossed over because of the many small improvements that made the progress possible. You have done justice to a topic that deserves more reporting. Keep up the fine work.
Every video or other video has Rex saying sorry for his voice. Each time, I think "I never noticed anything wrong". Rex has a clear voice with great pronunciation. As for this video, I know a lot on aviation, but this had many interesting facts and stories beyond the Montgolfiers. Great work.
A really fascinating story which is all new to me. To be honest it’s not a subject I have ever thought about and what you have told so far, is a real eye-opener !! ❤
Obviously zeppelins were far superior to balloons. Just hear the names. Balloon sounds like a cartoon character for a preschoolers TV show. Zeppelin sounds like a black kung fu master from Cygnis Alpha 4 in an underground comic.
One of your very best videos ever! (And I am not even interested in balloons!) Maybe you can one day do the same excellent work for early gliders. (Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher etc) Well done!
Well done ! Careful with your voice, my mother was a teacher and had to stop for a year to get her voice back. Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian (lived in France) inventor (by self-teaching) who created the first commercially successful coal gas two stroke engine. Then he invented the sparkplug. This lead to the first motor boat and the first car. (1.5hp 3km/h) He also developed an automatic telegraph that translated dots and dashes into letters.
Your best video so far! This is your real strength and USP - well researched and informative videos about uncommon themes and technology, or seldom told stories.
Thank you so much for doing a very in-depth discussion of this topic I'm excited for your other overview videos and possibly future videos focusing on individual airships
You should probably have mentioned Francesco Lana de Terzi and most importantly Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão. Both regarded as the fathers of aeronautics and hydrostatics , both cited by Montgolfier brothers and Jacques Alexandre Charles and subsequent aviators and both referenced in any reputable aeronautical engineering degree. As a balloon and airship engineer I feel a duty to their recognition.
Your most interesting video so far, and I think I have watched all of them. I never heard of kite balloons, and I will will be finding out more about portable field hydrogen generators. Thank you!
Ah, an interesting turn of events: balloons! (bless you). Surprising just how many have been used in warfare, especially during the 19th/early 20th Centuries.
On the 8th of August 1709, Fr. Bartolomeu de Gusmão, a Portuguese priest, demonstrated a hot-air balloon in the royal palace in Lisbon. He never progressed his idea further into a man-carrying balloon, but as the demonstration was made in the presence of most of Lisbon's diplomatic community it is not impossible that the Montgolfier brothers had become aware of the experiment. One should not ignore this very early pioneer.
Here in the US license plates from North Carolina say "first in flight" (Kitty Hawk) and plates from Ohio say "birthplace of aviation" (Wright Brothers' home state) and I just always laugh and picture ll those people happily floating around in balloons way before any of that even happened.
Makes sense. There was so much collaboration between so many pioneers in Europe. The time the american pioneers reached out, the aviation was already flourishing in Europe. Even FAI prize for first heavy than air machine was given to a French-Brazilian. Claiming a single place is the birth placeof aviation is at least, incorrect.
Another very interesting (and to my knowledge pretty unique, but I might be wrong) fact is that in Italy there had been for some time probably one of the very few examples ever of Balloons used for regular transportation. Specifically near Camaiore (near Viareggio) to the top of Apuan Alps in Tuscany(about 1 km horizontally and about 500m vertically), in the form of a hybrid between a cableway and a balloon. This was an idea of Alemanno Barsi, the owner of an hotel high in the mountain as a way to transport people (and potential customers) to high in the mountain near his own hotel, six at a time. The ascent from the seaside to the mountain top took about an hour as advertised but the balloon ropeway covered only last leg(about 1km) of the total 12km from the coast, the rest was done by road. Service started in August 1910 it was in service for 4 months and was destroyed by a storm in winter 1910.
If you're thinking of the man who jumped from the Eiffel Tower with a parachute, he actually suffered a heart attack on the way down. Can't think what might have caused it though.🤔
Great video it's a rare treat for me to learn something new historically and I learned a few new things in this video most informative and might I say the English accent is the best for narration and Englishman is the best narrator I have to say
Thank you for this video on early balloons and dirigibles. As a fan of the airship, I look forward to your future videos on the subject. I personally find the history of the ZRS-3, AKA USS Los Angeles, one of the best examples of airship history as it has a long service life in the interwar period.
Superb! A really excellent production - both very interesting, and very well produced. The use of the graphics was particularly good - no backround fillers, like you get in many educational videos, but every image adding to the understanding of the topic (and I learnt so much from this). God alone knows how much research must have gone into this. I can't wait for the airship installments!
Fantastic resource you have created and I can't wait till you have a full playlist of videos detailing Balloons to the modern blimps to the projected heavy lift commercial blimps I heard about.
Da Vinci: drawings People: crazy guy Balloons: fly & can crash Zeppelin: woosies Also Zeppelin: hydrogen gas Balloons: but how will you survive? Zeppelin: how does that even matter? Wright Bros: big propeller Balloons: mutton chops? Zepellin: looks more like minced meat Jumbo jet: rocket science enters the chat Da Vinci from the grave: 👀
Fantastic! I am tired of rehashes of ww2 and jet age flying. I have always loved most the wood and fabric flight (Testomony is I now fly a powered hang-glider too) I look forward to all the airship and ww1 history videos you do. Thank You 🍺😎👍
I've just come across your channel now.. and can I just say.. THANK YOU for talking about subjects that are relevant but not really mentioned. I was recently wondering about aircraft and air balloons.. we only hear about the successes of aviation but never about air balloons or when humans actually achieved flight. This video is a great insight into what we don't really know much about. Thanks again.. and Keep up the great work..
Hydrogen is often maligned when it comes to balloon safety. Hydrogen requires oxygen to burn, so as long as it is properly contained, it really does not need to be worried about. The Hindenburg's fire source was not the hydrogen, but the almost rocket fuel grade coatings it had, which under the right circumstances can make everyone involved with being on the ship or its immediate vicinity have a very bad day. Hydrogen requires oxygen to burn, something very lacking in the center of a gas cavity. But which is quite present on the outside of the balloon where any manner of generally oil-based coatings might happen to be present.
So glad to see you working with Drachnifel on the Wildcat fighter airplane UA-cam. So lucky to be in the internet age and subscribe to both of you. Enjoying the balloons!
Lovely work. When you do the Airships would it be possible to give a little extra detail as to how they learnt to steer them? I understand Eckener was a sailing champion prior to his involvement and it was this knowledge that helped enormously in airship effectiveness.
I have been a aviation enthusiast all my life now 60 and I never looked at the history of balloons, this is a wonderfull production that I thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you.
In an adventurous situation which I think must've been experienced by many earlier balloonists, I once read of two enthusiasts who ascended in their beautiful balloon rising higher and higher. They were thrilled to look out across distant vistas seen by only a scant few in that era -- when they were surprised to feel themselves becoming light-headed. The next thing they knew, they had regained consciousness to find themselves much, much closer to terra firma. They were able to guide their balloon to a safe landing. I suspect theirs was a hot air balloon. When they lost consciousness, the fire they'd been tending simply dwindled so that the balloon gradually began to cool and descend. Lucky it did that and even more lucky that they awakened in time.
Did you know that Count Zepplin had an introductory letter to Robert E Lee from a mutual friend in his coat pocket the entire time he was in the US, including when he was with the Army of the Patomic? He had it in case the he could no longer be an observer of the fights via the federal armies. It would probably also be useful in case of capture, but that is my speculation. Further, his trip up the Mississippi was partially begun because Lowe knew Steiner and told Zeppelin about him. Zeppelin met up with Steiner quite deliberately and had introductory notes from Lowe. Further, Steiner could speak German, which Lowe could not, so Zepplin and Steiner communicated quite well.
I am aware I stuffed up the pronunciation of a dozen things, Fleurus included. For once there wasn't a silent "s" it seemed...
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
Great video against Mr Australia. How about a video on British heavy bombers. Halifax Stirling ect
1st decent summary of lighter than air flight I have watched!
My Engineering soul enjoyed this brief summary glimpse of the past immensely.
This video is genuinely praiseworthy & wait in anticipation for the sequel.
I thought I'd have to point out a mistake or 2 but have no complaint that comes to mind surprisingly (Rex Hangers)
First off, I’d like to thank you for a wonderful video! For future reference, however, there is a correction I’d like for you to be made aware of.
Ballonets (the original ones, at least) aren’t really used for controlling the volume of lifting gas and thereby affecting the lift directly. Rather, they’re used for the maintenance of the envelope’s pressure and trim, which is to say, its controllability and also its ability to ascend with a fuller, more aerodynamically stable profile without needing to vent gas as it does so to prevent rupture. In other words, it keeps the balloon from getting dangerously floppy, and gives it a much higher ceiling.
The static weight of air in the ballonet _does_ have some tiny effect on the effective weight of the balloon, but this is negligible compared to the difference in external air pressure and density, and indeed differences in temperature. Likewise, ballonets have historically been incapable of compressing the lifting gas to any appreciable degree beyond simply maintenance of the envelope’s aerodynamic shape, certainly not to the pressures necessary for control of static heaviness (COSH) which has only recently been successfully demonstrated by testbed hybrid and conventional airships for DARPA. Namely, a modified Sky Dragon airship and the project PELICAN hybrid airship.
Will you do some "they never flew" video on the even earlier attempts at flying? Icarus is a myth, probably, but it seems to have been on people's minds for a while...
I do like a rabbit hole.
This video probably won’t have as much views as the next ww2 fighter, but it is 100x more valuable in my opinion. Balloons are way too often overlooked and left out because they didn’t carry guns, but that doesn’t make them less significant in history. Thank you for making this video!
Damn right, Balloons & dirigibles are so underrated in the history of flight.
Fuck it I fuckin love balloons if rex is doin balloons. LETS GO BALLOONING
Balloon ocasionaly had bombs, but had no impact. They where the start od arial warfare and transport
And they were art too! Which is crazy. This massive flying thing with things painted on it. Wow
@@CalumRaasay balloons don't fly, they float
This video is an absolute gem! I've long been interested in aviation, but the story nearly always begins with the Wright Brothers, with everything that preceded them either omitted or dismissed with a few brief mentions. This video helps to fill in much of that huge gap in my knowledge -- such as the fact that von Zeppelin was involved in the American Civil War, and had his introduction to ballooning there! This is the sort of history that makes this channel such a joy to watch. Thank you, Rex!
Agreed. Early accounts of manned flight usually limit discussion of balloons and airships to a few pages, and describe them more as a series of unconnected efforts rather than the progression of a class of technology.
so true, Ballooning history is underrated (idk if Ballooning is a word,but i feel as if i have heard the term before)
the interest in Ballooning also lead to scientific discoveries in chemistry,for example Boyle's law,the works of Jaques Charles,Gay Lussac etc.
@@madhukarjonathanminj2772 Boyle's Law annoys me to no end, when I shower. A pox upon him. We don't need his "Junk" science, that affects our "Junk". Double shower curtain is the only answer for his transgressions. I don't need to be enveloped and assaulted by a $5 piece of plastic, when I'm just trying to get the hell on with my day. Very nice video, as usual, man!
Ayup. This was an especially good one. 👍👍👍
Thank you for this video! My parents are hot air balloon pilots and I've been flying all my life! 55,000 cubic feet is pretty small compared to modern hot air balloons (typically 77,000 cu ft+), but the baskets are also significantly heavier these days which makes sense.
I would like to see you continue through lighter than air flight, on to the first modern propane-fueled balloon- as it was also a military project for the US navy!
Imagine flying in a fabric balloon filled with highly flamable hydrogen gas while fighter aircraft flew around you. It must have been terrifying
surprisingly hard to shoot them down. Due to lack of oxygen, it could be tough to get them to burn. Pilots even tried tracer rounds, incendiary rounds, and rockets in order to get them to burn.
One of the best and most famous balloon hunters was Frank Luke Jr. As far as I can tell, he never told anyone how he was able to so reliably destroy balloons.
@@SoloRenegade
But who would believe fart flares?
But you have a parachute, unlike that fighter pilot.
The balloons were so well defended that aviators could win awards for shooting them down.
At least you usually got a parachute...and the hope that the flaming wreckage didn't land on you.
On a funny and vaguely relevant note, there exists records of balloon based shenaniganry in a betting book at Brooks of London, where quote "Ld. Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Ld. Derby, to receive 500 Gs whenever his lordship [has sex with] a woman in a balloon one thousand yards from the Earth."
The entry is dated 1785, two years post first Montgolfier flight.
The fact that it only took two years for someone to ponder the mile high club is extraordinary.
The origin of the Mile High Club.
What an uplifting video. :)
What? Somebody was bound to say it.
The best piece on balloon history since Monty Python...
Also a great documentary, highlighting other aspects of ballooning history.
The book "Falling Upwards" by Richard Holmes is a quite detailed history of ballooning.
Thank you
I had a friend in high school who was absolutely convinced that airships were the future of aviation. Back then (late 70's/early 80's) there always seemed to be articles popping up in aviation- or technology-related publications about how the next generation of airship innovations were going to finally make them a viable commercial alternative to airplanes. Still waiting...
Ekranoplan wants a word
Still happening! Every decade, at least, the 'airships are future of aviation' articles pop up again. But, even when it seems to make sense, it still never happens!
The trouble with airships is how vulnerable they are to bad weather.
@@paulhaynes8045 Now we also have hybrid plane/airships vehicle. A spanish company (Air Nostrum) have actually bought some Airlander 10 for its national lines. They should enter in active service around 2026 and carry a hundred of passengers each. They are more complex to operate than airplanes, but require lighter infrastructures and consume far less fuel for the same carried mass.
I am 100% onboard with this. The longer the video the better. Thank you.
I am now especially looking forward to your video on Zeppelins. Ever since I first played Crimson Skies I have always had a fascination with them.
So fascinating. Even something deceptively simple as a tethered balloon has so much to it. Looking forward to more on this little covered topic.
Great video ! I grew up in Annonay where the Montgolfier brothers invented the first balloon. Every year in June they flew a reproduction of the first unmanned flight. In 1983 they had a week long celebrations for the 200 years birthday with many flights and such. I even had school friends descendants of the De Montgolfier. You missed that the first flight was tested with a couple farm animals. Pretty good pronunciation of French words.
Some newspapers reported the Wright's first flights as balloon ascents, since that was the known method of "flying" up to that time.
Wrong, hang gliders were a know thing. Where do you think the Wrighfs got their aerofoil data for their early flights? Data that they worked out was flawed.
Wow!
It should be pointed out that some very impressive (and dangerous) altitude records were set by aeronauts. British balloonists James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell ascended to over 34,000 feet, the very edge of the stratosphere - in 1862!
How did they breathe up there?
I bet that was cold
That's 10,36 km! Incredible.
@@neithere And they claimed 37,000 feet and just about died doing it!
@@Chironex_Fleckeri poorly
I love the paintings and sketches you've collected for this video. Beautiful and often full of wonder. Great article. I've always been a fan of lighter than air. But I still love watching your videos on weird and googly aircraft.
thousands of people took rides in Captive balloons in many Parris exhibitions 1890's onwards, where VERY large ballons with very large Gondolas were tethered to whinches and the public could pay to ride up to several hundred feet to see Paris (and also in many other cities) .
This was completely fascinating to hubby and me. Learned a great deal. So much work to plan, write, assemble, edit, narrate, and add graphics to....
can't imagine the time spent.
What a marvelous documentary!
Well done. Enjoyed the post immensely. Especially the references to Zeppelin.
Hi I live near Cardington and a relative worked on the R100 and R101. My mother saw the Graf Zeppelin in the 30s on a UK tour and I saw the skyship fly several times and the sad wreck. It was quite a storm.
Jane of the hangars is still in use for airship development - the Airlander 10, which I saw in flight on 17/8/2016, the day it had a crash landing.
i know its not conducive to the algorithm but LONG FORM CONTENT LONG FORM CONTENT!!
People like Doug Demuro regularly make successful long form content.
The centre-lowest of one of the engravings of the Paris encirclement depicts the projection of microfilm onto a screen. The carrying of thousands of letters on microfilm was a fascinating innovation.
wow, such a comprehencive history work, it can be converted to a book
This subject has benefited enormously from your attention to detail! Excellent work as ever!
This video is nostalgia, since I spent much of my childhood reading about the subject.
It's worth mentioning that John Wise, an American balloonist in the nineteenth century, developed a technique of rapidly deflating a balloon at altitude, allowing it to collapse into a parachute that then descended safely to the ground.
For further reading on balloons and ballooning, I recommend "Falling Upwards: How We Took To The Air" by Richard Holmes.
Excellent video with great information. Lighter then air flight is an immense subject that is a lot of times glossed over because of the many small improvements that made the progress possible. You have done justice to a topic that deserves more reporting. Keep up the fine work.
Almost an hour! Wow! Great job!
Every video or other video has Rex saying sorry for his voice. Each time, I think "I never noticed anything wrong". Rex has a clear voice with great pronunciation.
As for this video, I know a lot on aviation, but this had many interesting facts and stories beyond the Montgolfiers.
Great work.
I've been enjoying your channel for awhile now, but this was the best you've had on here, yet.
A really fascinating story which is all new to me. To be honest it’s not a subject I have ever thought about and what you have told so far, is a real eye-opener !! ❤
This may well be the best video you ever made and I have seen them all. I truly commend you on the work you have done for this
Thanks for this fascinating recording, Rex.
Fantastic work on the research sir
"It is not a balloon! It is an airship! Balloons is for kiddy-winkies!" - Ferdinand von Zeppelin
"Our balloons didn't kill any of their passengers or crew. How's your record, Ferdinand?" - the Montgolfier Brothers
Real men fly Zeppelins. -Sun Tzu
Obviously zeppelins were far superior to balloons. Just hear the names. Balloon sounds like a cartoon character for a preschoolers TV show. Zeppelin sounds like a black kung fu master from Cygnis Alpha 4 in an underground comic.
Rex any video on Ballons, and Airships especially of this quality is awsome by my standards, and is very much appreciated.
One of your very best videos ever! (And I am not even interested in balloons!)
Maybe you can one day do the same excellent work for early gliders. (Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher etc)
Well done!
Ah, yes, we simply must have a video on the early days of falling with style.
Dude this was so good! Love the longer videos
Well done ! Careful with your voice, my mother was a teacher and had to stop for a year to get her voice back.
Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian (lived in France) inventor (by self-teaching) who created the first commercially successful coal gas two stroke engine.
Then he invented the sparkplug. This lead to the first motor boat and the first car. (1.5hp 3km/h)
He also developed an automatic telegraph that translated dots and dashes into letters.
Your best video so far! This is your real strength and USP - well researched and informative videos about uncommon themes and technology, or seldom told stories.
Looking forward to the next episode, really good research here, Rex. Thanks for your efforts, much appreciated!
Thank you so much for doing a very in-depth discussion of this topic I'm excited for your other overview videos and possibly future videos focusing on individual airships
A genuine awesome video!
This channel is an absolute gem. And fantastic episode
Outstanding, thoroughly enjoyed this. Look forward to the rest of the series.
What a great video Rex! Far more fascinating than I thought it was going to be. Well done!
You should probably have mentioned Francesco Lana de Terzi and most importantly Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão. Both regarded as the fathers of aeronautics and hydrostatics , both cited by Montgolfier brothers and Jacques Alexandre Charles and subsequent aviators and both referenced in any reputable aeronautical engineering degree. As a balloon and airship engineer I feel a duty to their recognition.
Thanks. I am so interested in airships and their possible return with modern technology.
This was fascinating. I can't wait for the next part.
I have always been interested in lighter than air flight, so to say that I’m looking forward to this series is a rather large understatement!
The giant rigids were an amazing footnote in modern history.
Floating not flying
Inspector Brown of the Detail Squad here. Potential infractions excepted, a very fine video, thoroughly enjoyable and most informative.
Your most interesting video so far, and I think I have watched all of them.
I never heard of kite balloons, and I will will be finding out more about portable field hydrogen generators.
Thank you!
Ah, an interesting turn of events: balloons! (bless you). Surprising just how many have been used in warfare, especially during the 19th/early 20th Centuries.
That was a fantastic bit of work, well done!
On the 8th of August 1709, Fr. Bartolomeu de Gusmão, a Portuguese priest, demonstrated a hot-air balloon in the royal palace in Lisbon. He never progressed his idea further into a man-carrying balloon, but as the demonstration was made in the presence of most of Lisbon's diplomatic community it is not impossible that the Montgolfier brothers had become aware of the experiment. One should not ignore this very early pioneer.
Honestly it was so interesting that it didn’t feel like 50 minutes 😳
It wasn't, it was only 48 mins and 14 seconds!
Ditto!
I put it off for a few days thinking the same. However, as always, totally interesting!!👍👍
"First to fly"? Now we need entire episode about Otto Lilienthal! :D
I loved this video. Thanks for your industrious research.
Here in the US license plates from North Carolina say "first in flight" (Kitty Hawk) and plates from Ohio say "birthplace of aviation" (Wright Brothers' home state) and I just always laugh and picture ll those people happily floating around in balloons way before any of that even happened.
Floating and flying are not the same thing.
@@kyle857 Yeah, floating is in water, flying is in air.
@@decagamin5901 Incorrect. Things can float in gasses.
@@kyle857 Shhhhh.
Makes sense. There was so much collaboration between so many pioneers in Europe. The time the american pioneers reached out, the aviation was already flourishing in Europe. Even FAI prize for first heavy than air machine was given to a French-Brazilian.
Claiming a single place is the birth placeof aviation is at least, incorrect.
I look forward to the rest of the lighter than air series.
I love these long in depth topics. Looks like Rex might be the aviation version of Drachinefel.
Another very interesting (and to my knowledge pretty unique, but I might be wrong) fact is that in Italy there had been for some time probably one of the very few examples ever of Balloons used for regular transportation. Specifically near Camaiore (near Viareggio) to the top of Apuan Alps in Tuscany(about 1 km horizontally and about 500m vertically), in the form of a hybrid between a cableway and a balloon. This was an idea of Alemanno Barsi, the owner of an hotel high in the mountain as a way to transport people (and potential customers) to high in the mountain near his own hotel, six at a time. The ascent from the seaside to the mountain top took about an hour as advertised but the balloon ropeway covered only last leg(about 1km) of the total 12km from the coast, the rest was done by road. Service started in August 1910 it was in service for 4 months and was destroyed by a storm in winter 1910.
A splendid feast. 👍
Montgolfier: flies
Parachute guy 1912: me too!
Also parachute guy: aaaaaaaa...splat
If you're thinking of the man who jumped from the Eiffel Tower with a parachute, he actually suffered a heart attack on the way down.
Can't think what might have caused it though.🤔
Looking forward to all the upcoming lighter than air videos! Great topic!
Well researched and nicely presented, very informative and entertaining at the same time. And your voice is pleasant to listen to.
Really glad this video was recommended me, channels like this is why UA-cam exists.
Conquest of the Air, written by John Alexander and published in 1902, is an interesting account of early ballooning. It is available to read online.
Great video it's a rare treat for me to learn something new historically and I learned a few new things in this video most informative and might I say the English accent is the best for narration and Englishman is the best narrator I have to say
Beautifully done. Just perfect.
Can we take a moment to appreciate the German word for "racing" used within the context of an open ended balloon?
"Wettfahrten"
Thank you for this video on early balloons and dirigibles. As a fan of the airship, I look forward to your future videos on the subject.
I personally find the history of the ZRS-3, AKA USS Los Angeles, one of the best examples of airship history as it has a long service life in the interwar period.
Superb! A really excellent production - both very interesting, and very well produced. The use of the graphics was particularly good - no backround fillers, like you get in many educational videos, but every image adding to the understanding of the topic (and I learnt so much from this). God alone knows how much research must have gone into this. I can't wait for the airship installments!
Thank you for these proclaimed "rabbit holes" ! Splendid work indeed. I appreciate your humor too . Best Regards!
Fantastic resource you have created and I can't wait till you have a full playlist of videos detailing Balloons to the modern blimps to the projected heavy lift commercial blimps I heard about.
Great video! I appreciate the research you did on this. My father found it super interesting as well. Keep up the good work!
Da Vinci: drawings
People: crazy guy
Balloons: fly & can crash
Zeppelin: woosies
Also Zeppelin: hydrogen gas
Balloons: but how will you survive?
Zeppelin: how does that even matter?
Wright Bros: big propeller
Balloons: mutton chops?
Zepellin: looks more like minced meat
Jumbo jet: rocket science enters the chat
Da Vinci from the grave: 👀
This is my favorite video of yours so far. I would love to see some other content like this, especially about rocketry
Fantastic! I am tired of rehashes of ww2 and jet age flying. I have always loved most the wood and fabric flight (Testomony is I now fly a powered hang-glider too) I look forward to all the airship and ww1 history videos you do.
Thank You 🍺😎👍
Balloon Street in central Manchester is named after an ascent in a nearby recreation ground by James Sadler in 1785.
I've just come across your channel now.. and can I just say.. THANK YOU for talking about subjects that are relevant but not really mentioned. I was recently wondering about aircraft and air balloons.. we only hear about the successes of aviation but never about air balloons or when humans actually achieved flight. This video is a great insight into what we don't really know much about.
Thanks again.. and Keep up the great work..
Balloons are and always will be a "that's just wrong" sight.
I’m very interested in the history of ballooning and airships. I’m looking forward to the next videos. Thanks!
Very interesting, thank you.
So Romantic. Nothing better than flying a balloon. Travelling at the speed of the wind, it is absolutely silent whilst the burners are not operated.
Very very interesting. As always well researched and presented.
Hydrogen is often maligned when it comes to balloon safety. Hydrogen requires oxygen to burn, so as long as it is properly contained, it really does not need to be worried about. The Hindenburg's fire source was not the hydrogen, but the almost rocket fuel grade coatings it had, which under the right circumstances can make everyone involved with being on the ship or its immediate vicinity have a very bad day. Hydrogen requires oxygen to burn, something very lacking in the center of a gas cavity. But which is quite present on the outside of the balloon where any manner of generally oil-based coatings might happen to be present.
Awesome thanks 👍 great work Sir
Extremely interesting! Well done! 👏
Some of your best work here!
EXCELLENT ! DILIGENTLY RESEARCHED AND BEAUTIFULLY NARRATED - ABSOLUTELY FACINATING - THANK YOU
So glad to see you working with Drachnifel on the Wildcat fighter airplane UA-cam. So lucky to be in the internet age and subscribe to both of you. Enjoying the balloons!
Lovely work. When you do the Airships would it be possible to give a little extra detail as to how they learnt to steer them? I understand Eckener was a sailing champion prior to his involvement and it was this knowledge that helped enormously in airship effectiveness.
I have been a aviation enthusiast all my life now 60 and I never looked at the history of balloons, this is a wonderfull production that I thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you.
Fascinating history. I think you have tapped a goldmine here. ✔
In an adventurous situation which I think must've been experienced by many earlier balloonists, I once read of two enthusiasts who ascended in their beautiful balloon rising higher and higher. They were thrilled to look out across distant vistas seen by only a scant few in that era -- when they were surprised to feel themselves becoming light-headed. The next thing they knew, they had regained consciousness to find themselves much, much closer to terra firma. They were able to guide their balloon to a safe landing. I suspect theirs was a hot air balloon. When they lost consciousness, the fire they'd been tending simply dwindled so that the balloon gradually began to cool and descend. Lucky it did that and even more lucky that they awakened in time.
Brilliant vid, it was super interesting. Totally looking forward to the future videos you mentioned, thank you very much.
This was utterly fascinating thank you!
Did you know that Count Zepplin had an introductory letter to Robert E Lee from a mutual friend in his coat pocket the entire time he was in the US, including when he was with the Army of the Patomic? He had it in case the he could no longer be an observer of the fights via the federal armies. It would probably also be useful in case of capture, but that is my speculation.
Further, his trip up the Mississippi was partially begun because Lowe knew Steiner and told Zeppelin about him. Zeppelin met up with Steiner quite deliberately and had introductory notes from Lowe. Further, Steiner could speak German, which Lowe could not, so Zepplin and Steiner communicated quite well.