Zahlen, bitte! At 18 meters and no pants: pioneer flight over English Channel
Aviation pioneer Jean-Pierre Blanchard not only crossed the English Channel flying for the first time, but also pioneered ballooning in other ways.
(Image: heise online)
What is now part of everyday life was a sensation almost two and a half centuries ago: 240 years ago, Jean-Pierre François Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon on January 7, 1785. They took off in calm, clear weather from a tower at Dover Castle at one o'clock in the afternoon and landed in the Foret de Felmores near Guînes after a two and a half hour flight.
At the end, their 8.2 meter diameter balloon began to descend at 600 meters per minute and the two balloonists had to jettison all their ballast, instruments, flyers, their weatherproof clothing and finally the rudder-like controls of the basket.
Hanging in the rigging in their underpants and life jackets, they reached the French coast at a height of just 18 meters above the sea. Nevertheless, the pioneering feat was a complete success and was duly celebrated.
Just how risky the undertaking was demonstrated on June 17 of the same year, when the competitors, Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain, died in an accident while flying in the opposite direction.
The balloon flight fascinated observers
The start of manned aviation began with the hot air balloons of the Montgolfier brothers. One eyewitness described the sensational flight: “It is impossible to describe this moment – the women in tears; the common people raising their hands to the sky in profound silence; the passengers leaning out of the gallery, waving and shouting for joy … the feeling of terror gives way to amazement.”
(Image:Â gemeinfrei)
The gas balloons of the physicist Jacques Alexandre César Charles in 1783 followed in 1782, based on the latest research into the production of hydrogen (“burning air”) by Cavendish and Lavoisier. While Charles was only interested in physical measurements (and reached an altitude of around 3400 meters), Blanchard's balloon flights were spectacular major events of a special kind. He sold tickets for the three-day preparation of a balloon flight with the production of hydrogen from iron filings and sulphuric acid, the price of which increased as the balloon took off.
The sale of 2000 tickets for two Reichstaler during his 20th balloon flight in Hamburg in 1786 is documented. The exorbitant ticket price was justified by the balloon showman Blanchard with the announced dropping of a sheep on a parachute from a great height.
Crossing the English Channel for marketing reasons
After several successful take-offs and landings in France, Jean-Pierre Blanchard's aim with the balloon flight across the English Channel was to make his name known throughout Europe. As the airmail letters were not enough to finance the adventure, Blanchard had to accept an offer from British doctor John Jeffries, who wanted to fly with him for 500 pounds (226.8 kg). Jeffries, who was born in Boston, USA, had sided with the Royalists in the American War of Independence and was now practising as a doctor in London.
(Image:Â National Air And Space Museum)
He had already completed a balloon flight with Blanchard over the city to test and measure the quality of the “terrible air”. At the start of the Channel crossing in Dover, Blanchard tried to outmaneuver him by turning up for the weigh-in with lead weights sewn in, claiming that the gondola could not carry a second person. Jeffries saw through the trick, and so the launch in Dover had to take place with the relieved Blanchard.
After the narrow landing, the deed was duly celebrated. Blanchard received a lifelong pension of 1200 livres (the predecessor of the franc) from the king, Jeffries the recognition of his fellow Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. The latter ensured that Blanchard was able to make the first flight on American soil with his balloon in 1793 in the presence of President Washington.
Balloon flight demonstrations throughout Europe
By this time, Blanchard had profited extensively from the rampant balloon fever in Europe. His first launch on German soil on October 3, 1785, on the Bornheimer Heide near Frankfurt am Main, where all the guest rooms were therefore fully booked. Blanchard flew for 39 minutes, dropped a dog from his parachute and landed in Weilburg. He became an honorary citizen of Frankfurt and received 50 gold ducats as a reward, although the balloon caused considerable damage to the ground when it took off with the gondola dragging. Blanchard moved on and ascended in Ghent on November 21.
(Image:Â CC-BY-SA: Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Foto: Horst Ziegenfusz)
There, his balloon was overpressurized, which Blanchard tried to compensate for with holes in the balloon envelope. This failed, as the gas escaped far too quickly. He had to save himself with a parachute when the balloon crashed.
Large crowds for the balloon flight in Nuremberg
When Blanchard took to the skies over Nuremberg on November 17, 1787, 50,000 to 60,000 spectators are said to have watched the spectacle. Many ran after the balloon as it drifted away, which is said to have led to the Franconian saying “No schau' ner hie, der rennt wie beim Blenscherd”.
After ascents in Brunswick in 1788, Berlin in 1788 and Hanover in 1790, Blanchard carried out several balloon flights in Vienna in 1791. One of these demonstrations was seen by Emanuel Schikaneder, who promptly incorporated a balloon flight into Mozart's opera “The Magic Flute”. Mozart himself wrote enthusiastically about ballooning in his letters, without ever having seen Blanchard himself.
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge wrote about the balloon flight in Brunswick in his humorous work “The Journey to Brunswick”.
Blanchard continued to hone his “stage show” when he left his family and married the petite Marie Madeleine-Sophie Armant in 1804, who was to join him on many balloon rides and perform tricks, such as presenting herself on a swing under the gondola. Jean-Pierre and Sophie Blanchard were the first married couple to cross the English Channel from Calais to Dover in the air.
Death in flight
On March 7, 1809, Jan-Pierre suffered a stroke during a balloon flight with his wife – presumably as a result of a crash a year earlier, from which he never recovered: he died the same day.
Due to financial difficulties, Sophie Blanchard continued the tradition of balloon flights and expanded the show repertoire to include daring rope actions and nocturnal firework ascents. She was appointed official imperial aeronaut and “aeronaut of the Restoration” under both Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis XVIII, and performed at many court events.
(Image:Â Paris : Romanet & Cie)
On July 6, 1819, the aeronaut took off on a night flight over Tivoli in Paris, where she wanted to set off a particularly large firework display. Her balloon caught fire, she had to jettison all ballast and drifted burning over Paris. The basket finally caught on a roof and Sophie Blanchard plunged to her death.
The horrified crowd collected money for her children. When it emerged that she was childless, a monument was commissioned for the first female airship woman to die, which today stands on her grave in Père Lachaise with the inscription “Victime de son Art et de son Intrepidite” (Victim of her art and intrepidity). Her death went down in literary history when Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his work “The Gambler”, dealt with the question of what Sophie Blanchard might have been thinking when she crashed.
(dahe)
