The Dawn of Aviation. 1st Montgolfier balloon free flight by humans, Paris 1783
£260
SKU: P-6-109577
[The dawn of aviation. Report of the first untethered powered flight by humans in the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon in Paris]
A report of the dawn of the age of aviation, reported here as 23 November 1783 in Paris, when the Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon carried Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes aloft. Launching from the Château de la Muette before a crowd that included King Louis XVI and Benjamin Franklin, the balloon remained airborne for about 25 minutes and travelled approximately 5 miles across the city. This historic ascent marked the first untethered human flight, powered solely by heated air, and symbolised the dawn of aviation—capturing the imagination of Enlightenment Europe and affirming France’s leading role in scientific innovation. The travellers, “satisfied with their experiment, agreed to descend,” but seeing that the wind was carrying them over the rooftops of the Rue de Sèvres in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, “with great presence of mind, immediately unfolded more gas and rose again, pursuing their way until they found themselves past the metropolis, in the open fields, where, with the utmost composure, they came down, without having felt the slightest inconvenience, and having still in their gallery two-thirds of their provision... it was in their power to have gone over a space three times greater than what they did.”
Size 20 x 13 cm | 8.0 x 5.0 inches
Date Published: December 1783
Type: Two antique copperplate pages, on two sheets
Author: Anonymous
Publication: Gentleman's Magazine
Condition: Good |
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