The French brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740-1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1745-1799) were the inventors of the first practical hot air balloon. Their family had been known in France for its paper mills, but it was the combination of Joseph's innovative mind and Étienne's business sense that would forever link the family name to aviation.

Joseph's first balloon design was fabricated in November 1782, made of silk and only four feet tall. Its successful demonstration of heated-air buoyancy, although indoors, inspired further efforts. Joseph approached his brother Étienne, who was running the family paper business, about ways to manufacture a larger and less porous balloon. They began experimenting with gasbag shapes and materials, leading them to a round balloon design made from silk with paper backing.

They demonstrated an unpiloted balloon of 110-foot circumference to a stunned public in Annonay, France on June 4, 1783. On September 19, 1783, the first living aeronauts (a sheep, duck, and rooster) ascended aboard another Montgolfier design at the Palace of Versailles. Following some tethered tests in a new, elaborately decorated balloon, the first free (non-tethered) human flight took place on November 21, 1783, by science lecturer Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, the marquis d’Arlandes. The flight began from the grounds of the Château de la Muette in the western outskirts of Paris. De Rozier and Laurent forked straw into a burner to heat the air and crudely control altitude, while using wet sponges on poles to put out small embers inside the gas envelope. They flew aloft about 3,000 feet (910 m) above Paris for a distance of about 5.6 miles (9 km). After 25 minutes, the balloon landed outside the city in an area called Croulebarbe.

The Montgolfière in the Museum’s lobby, built by volunteer Alex Morton, is a 1/10 scale model of the balloon that first carried humans aloft on November 21, 1783.

The French brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740-1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1745-1799) were the inventors of the first practical hot air balloon. Their family had been known in France for its paper mills, but it was the combination of Joseph's innovative mind and Étienne's business sense that would forever link the family name to aviation.

Joseph's first balloon design was fabricated in November 1782, made of silk and only four feet tall. Its successful demonstration of heated-air buoyancy, although indoors, inspired further efforts. Joseph approached his brother Étienne, who was running the family paper business, about ways to manufacture a larger and less porous balloon. They began experimenting with gasbag shapes and materials, leading them to a round balloon design made from silk with paper backing.

They demonstrated an unpiloted balloon of 110-foot circumference to a stunned public in Annonay, France on June 4, 1783. On September 19, 1783, the first living aeronauts (a sheep, duck, and rooster) ascended aboard another Montgolfier design at the Palace of Versailles. Following some tethered tests in a new, elaborately decorated balloon, the first free (non-tethered) human flight took place on November 21, 1783, by science lecturer Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, the marquis d’Arlandes. The flight began from the grounds of the Château de la Muette in the western outskirts of Paris. De Rozier and Laurent forked straw into a burner to heat the air and crudely control altitude, while using wet sponges on poles to put out small embers inside the gas envelope. They flew aloft about 3,000 feet (910 m) above Paris for a distance of about 5.6 miles (9 km). After 25 minutes, the balloon landed outside the city in an area called Croulebarbe.

The Montgolfière in the Museum’s lobby, built by volunteer Alex Morton, is a 1/10 scale model of the balloon that first carried humans aloft on November 21, 1783.