But the story of airships, friends, is of the first method. Flying in the air by making yourself lighter. In the 1770s, two brothers in France, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. These brothers were highly intelligent and creative. One day, they saw someone drying clothes over a fire. Joseph observes that the heat produced by the fire caused the clothes to start flying upwards.
This gave him an idea of doing the same thing on a bigger scale. He started by making a small box from thin wood, and covered it with a lightweight cloth. Inside the box, he put a crumpled piece of paper and set it on fire. He saw that the box started flying once the fire was lit. Immediately, he started making a bigger model of the box with his brother.
On 14th December 1782, the first test flight was conducted with a full-size model. They set fire to wool and hay. The lifting force produced was so strong that they lost control of their box and it kept flying for 2 km. Next year, in 1783, they did a public demonstration in the presence of the king of France, King Louis, in his palace in Versailles. In this demonstration, they put a duck and a hen in the box, to demonstrate that animals could fly safely in it.
When the king saw this, he was pleased. And thus they got permission to test it with humans inside the box. And this, friends, is how the hot air balloon was invented. Jacques-Étienne became the first man to fly in a balloon.
