flight
As an advertising stunt, a real estate company has set up an enormous hot air balloon in one of the parking lots down the street from my office. I say a hot air balloon, because I don't know what else to call it, but in fact, there's no evidence of any heating mechanism, and the balloon is probably filled with helium. For 15 dollars, you can climb into the basket, which looks more or less like an oversized picnic hamper, and go up as high as the tether will let you. Somehow, it's not that tempting. I used to laugh at my mother's fear of heights, but it seems that, over time, it's rubbed off on me. It's not exactly that I'm afraid, but, when looking down from a height, my fingers twitch and I feel zero at the bone. I can't help visualizing the tumble, the descent, the crash.
Everyone who walks by stares and points at the balloon and I think about how impressive balloons must have been when they were invented back in the late 18th century. The Montgolfier brothers, sons of a well-off paper manufacturer, designed and built one of the first hot air balloons, as big as a house and covered with blue fabric decorated with golden faces and flourishes. The balloon was launched on September 19, 1783 at Versailles, in front of a huge and curious crowd, which included Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The basket carried three passengers: a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. Despite a gust of wind at takeoff that spilled much of the hot air and threatened to capsize the basket, the demonstration was a great success and the animals were found about two miles away, the sheep grazing peacefully on the nearby grass. Although one of the rooster's wings was broken, it wasn't because of any adverse effects of the flight, but because the sheep had stepped on it.
Edited to add this cool picture of the Montgolfier brothers' balloon. And to point out that "montgolfière" means hot air balloon in French.
8 comments:
"...because the sheep had stepped on it."
Love it! Life is just so random and inexplicable.
The Air and Space museum, one of my childhood haunts, used to have a window about the first balloon flight over the English channel. You pressed a button, I think, and the thing lit up and sprung into action. I loved it with a passion, the recorded French accents, the drama of a crossing that was of course, entirely conveyed by the script.
It's gone now, of course.
I am not sure I would ever be able to step foot into a hot air balloon. I'd probably hyperventilate with fear and then fall out and then a sheep would step on my wing.
Great place you have here. . .I'll be back.
I'm not typically afraid of heights, but I have a fear of riding in hot air balloons. I guess it's because I used to work with a man whose wife and two children died in a hot air balloon crash. I can't get the thought of his tragedy out of my mind. Funny how I don't stop driving my car, even though I've known many more people to die in car crashes.
love the balooon history. My dad is a huge hot air balloon fan, and the town I grew up in had a hot air balloon festival. It was amazing to watch a field full of colorful balloons take flight!
Furrow: What a horrible story. I figure that I can't really avoid driving my car, but that it's easy enough not to ride in hot air balloons. So even if the risk is relatively low, it's one I don't have to take.
I wonder if they ate the rooster afterwards?
I mean, it's not liek they were going to put a cast on him right?
Aurelia: In one of the accounts I read, it claimed that after their trip in the balloon, the sheep, duck and rooster were all given places of honor in the royal menagerie. But you might be right.
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