#ballooning

I'll admit, I write a lot about balloons, blimps, zeppelins, and airships. I didn't expect there to be so many topics for them! For example, today's post is about a horse.

The last 1700s seems to have been the analogue of the 1950s, but it's balloons instead of jet engines. We have this strange new technology, let's try absolutely everything and see what sticks. For instance, what happens if you try to do mounted cavalry on a balloon?

I'm really not exaggerating. Pierre Testu-Brissy was a French ballooning pioneer who has the fascinating subsection title of "Equestrian ballooning" on his Wikipedia article. While he did regular ballooning flights, including being the first person to observe St. Elmo's Fire and lightning while airborne, he was most famous for going ballooning while astride a horse.

This horse was specially trained to be very calm and still no matter what else is going on, though I'm still not sure that would prepare a horse for flying. Testu-Brissy's balloon consisted of a long rectangular platform for the horse, with the man sitting on the horse, and a gas envelope above.

Shockingly enough, over his horseback flights, absolutely nothing went wrong, except that the horse got a nosebleed. And now and forever, on the "List of aviation firsts", you'll find an entry for "First balloon ascent on horseback" in 1798.

By the way, one of the images on his article has the excellent title of "Pierre Testu Brissy on Air Horse One with Hydrogen Balloon".

Seta 100% naturale a Km 0

In Australia i ragni non camminano come persone normali. No.

Aspettano che piova, salgono su una pianta, alzano il sedere verso il cielo e partono col vento come se avessero prenotato un volo low cost.

Si chiama ballooning ed è letteralmente una migrazione di massa fatta di ragnatele ovunque e traumi permanenti.

La scienza dice che è una strategia di sopravvivenza.

Io dico che è una dichiarazione di guerra.

"Destruction of Mrs. Graham's balloon." Through the air: a narrative of forty years' experience as an aëronaut. 1873.

Shit happens I guess.