History

Bartolomeu de Gusmão	Etiene e Joseph Montgolfier	História

Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685-1724)
Was born in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, and conducted his studies at the Jesuit Seminary in Belém, in Cachoeira, Capitania da Baía, where he was ordained.

From an early age he became interested in the study of Physics, conceiving of a water lifting machine 100 meters high, in the Belém Seminary. In 1701 he came to Portugal and returned to Brazil shortly after, to return to Portugal in 1708 in order to take the Canons course of the University of Coimbra. Here he developed his physics and mathematics studies.

In 1709 he directed a petition to King João V announcing that he had discovered "an instrument to travel through the air similar to land and sea.” The king granted him the right to his instrument with the decree of 19 April 1709. He conducted several experiments with hot air balloons, some of them in the presence of King João V and the court. In 1713 he went to Holland where he intended to develop his experiences. He returned in 1716 and in 1720 concluded the university course he had interrupted.

Upon the founding of the Royal Academy of History in 1720, he was named an academic and João V placed him in the State Office, named nobleman-chaplain of the royal house and conferring income to him in Brazil. He was commissioned by the Academy to write the history of the Bishopric of Porto in Portuguese. Shortly before he died he converted to Judaism in 1724 and fled to Spain to avoid the persecution of the Inquisition of which he was a target.

In 1724 he died in a hospital in Toledo, Spain, during the escape. He was the brother of politician and diplomat Alexandre de Gusmão (1629-1724).

Works
Summary Manifesto for Those Who Ignore the Possibility of Navigating with the Element of Air, which purported to show the possibility of aeronautics, 1709; Various Modes of Exhausting without People the Ships That Cause Water, 1710.

Major scientific contributions

Nicknamed the "flying priest”, he is considered a precursor of aeronautics, being the first to prove the possibility of creating devices with the ability to fly. The project presented to King João V provided the possibility of creating an instrument that would allow the sending of notices to distant territories, transport overseas products, aid beleaguered sites, discover the regions near the poles, and solve the problem of longitude.

On 19 April 1709, after receiving support from King João V, along with a privilege that would allow him to have the exclusive right for building flying machines, he devoted himself to this task. The first public exhibition was on 5 August 1709, in a room of the Palace and in the king’s presence, trying to lift a paper globe that had a small nacelle with a fire over the opening, but the balloon burned without flying.

The second experiment, on 7 or 8 August, was successful. On 8 August 1709, in the Hall of the Ambassadors of the India House, before King João V, the Queen, the Apostolic Nuncio, Cardinal Conti (later Pope Innocent XIII), the Diplomatic Corps and other members of the court, Gusmão managed to raise a small thick brown paper balloon some 4 meters high, filled with warm air, produced by the "fire material contained within a clay bowl embedded in the base of a waxed wooden board”. Fearing that the curtains would catch fire, two servants destroyed the balloon, but the experience was successful and highly impressed the Crown. On 3 October, another "flying instrument” launched at India House rose to a great height.

During the second half of the eighteenth century the idea that Bartolomeu de Gusmão himself made a flight in an airship he built, between S. Jorge Castle and the Palace Square, spread but it is a legend. There are no documents recording this event and his experiences revived in the popular imagination to such an extent that he was a laughingstock.

There are no other known experiences beyond those that he performed in court, being very famous the engraving that he made of the "passarola”. This was probably just a ruse created by Gusmão to divert attention from his detractors and curious.

The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph Michel (1740-1810) and Etienne (1745-1799) carried out experiments with airships in the second half of the eighteenth century. In September 1783, after several experiments, they lifted a hot air balloon transporting three animals and in November another balloon carrying two people that flew over Paris.

References
AMEIDA, L. Ferrand de, "Gusmão, Bartolomeu Lourenço de”, in SERRÃO, Joel, Dicionário de História de Portugal, Porto, Figueirinhas, 1981, vol. III, pp. 184-185. CARVALHO, História dos Balões, Lisboa, Relógio d’Agua, 1991.
CRUZ FILHO, F. Murillo, Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão: Sua Obra e o Significado Fáustico de Sua Vida, Rio de Janeiro, Biblioteca Reprográfica Xerox, 1985. SILVA, Inocencio da, ARANHA, Brito, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional, T. I, pp. 332-334.
TAUNAY, Affonso d’Escragnolle, Bartolomeu de Gusmão: inventor do aerostato: a vida e a obra do primeiro inventor americano, S. Paulo, Leia, 1942. TAUNAY, Affonso d’Escragnolle, Bartholomeu de Gusmão e a sua prioridade aerostatica, S. Paulo: Escolas Profissionaes Salesianas, 1935, Sep. do Annuario da Escola Polytechnica da Univ. de São Paulo, 1935.                                                




Etiene e Joseph Montgolfier

The brothers Joseph Michel Montgolfier (26 August 1740 - 26 June 1810) and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier (6 January 1745 - 2 August 1799) were inventors who built the first manned balloon in the year 1783. The brothers were sons of a paper manufacturer (Canson, still one of the most traditional and modern companies in the world) from Annonay, south of Lyon, France.

Reportedly, when the brothers were playing with an open paper bag inverted over fire, they noticed that the bag floated. With this, they found that they could finally realize humanity’s great dream: to fly. They went on to conduct several experiments with various materials to build a practical balloon.

On 5 June 1783, they publicly displayed a balloon that had 32 m in circumference and was made of flax, which was filled with smoke from a dry straw fire, rising from the ground by about 300 m, flying a distance of about 3 km for about 10 minutes. On 19 September 1783, before King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, Joseph Montgolfier repeated his experiment, the balloon flying for 25 minutes with two occupants (Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent), covering roughly 9 kilometers.

Many do not consider Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier as the inventors of the hot air balloon. In 1709, the Portuguese Jesuit priest Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, born in colonial Brazil, achieved ascent in a balloon filled with hot air, so almost 80 years before the French Montgolfier brothers.

The Montgolfier invention seems, according to the French magazines Nouvelle Europe and L’Aeron from the early twentieth century, a mere copy of Gusmão’s aeroship, since following his flight to Spain he left his inventive plans with his brother and notable scientist Alexandre Gusmão. It is known that when Alexandre was in Paris he maintained a close friendship with the scientist José de Barros, who in turn was a personal friend of the Montgolfiers.

In 1917 the petition Bartolomeu de Gusmão made to King João V was found in the Vatican. Some drawings of the aircraft were printed in the Wienerische Diarium newspaper in 1709. There was a public demonstration of the experiment before the Portuguese court.



History from 1709
8 August 1709
First hot air balloon model constructed by Bartolomeu de Gusmao; on 8 August 1709, the Portuguese Jesuit priest Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (1685-1724) held a demonstration of various hot air balloons models before the Portuguese court gathered by the Portuguese King João V in Lisbon.

5 June 1783
The first public ascent of an unmanned paper balloon by the Montgolfier brothers; after a series of trials with small and large balloons, the brothers Joseph (1740-1810) and Etienne (1745-1799) Montgolfier decided to hold the first public display of their invention. For this, they built a balloon made of linen and covered with paper, with a diameter of 35 feet (11 meters). The balloon named "Ad Astra” took off in a square in the middle of Annonay and remained in the air – to the admiration of the spectators – for about ten minutes. The balloon reached an altitude of about 6000 feet (1829 meters) and traveled almost 2 km before landing.

19 September 1783
First ascent of a balloon with passengers; a new hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers took flight in the square in front of the Palace of Versailles and landed after just eight minutes in Vaucressont Forest, 3.2 km north of Versailles. A balloon named "Le Martial” made of cotton and paper with a diameter of 13 m.

The balloon carried the first three passengers: a rooster, a duck and a sheep, which were placed in a cage under the balloon. King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette observed this flight.

21 November 1783
First unmanned hot air balloon flight; Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes flew, from the "Chateau la Muette” in the forest of Bois de Boulogne near Paris, at 13:54, a balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, a blue ball decorated with the golden face of the sun god Apollo . The first manned flight lasted 20 minutes and covered about 5 miles (about 9 km) at an altitude of 330 feet (100 meters). The balloon landed in Butte-aux-Cailles, located near the current "Place d’Italie” metro station.

25 November 1783
First flight of a small unmanned balloon in England; Count Francesco Zambeccari, along with his Italian friend Michael Biaggini, a maker of artificial flowers, managed to make a balloon model fly from Biaggini’s roof in Cheapside in London.

1 December 1783
First flight of a manned gas balloon; Jacques A. C. Charles and Prof. Noel Robert took off from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris in a gas balloon, and landed about 27 miles (43 kilometers) away, near Nesles-la-Vallee (after two hours).

14 January 1784
First ascent of an unmanned balloon in Austria; a hot air balloon, built by Alois von Widmannstetter, a printer from Graz, was able to take off three times to about 200 m in height in a garden in Vienna. Many spectators observed the ascents.

19 January 1784
First balloon flight carried out by a Belgian; the Belgian prince Charles de Ligne took off in his balloon in Lyon (France).

22 January 1784
First flight of an unmanned balloon in Germany; ascent of an unmanned hot air balloon, built by the Benedictine monk, astronomer and German physicist Professor Ulrich Schiegg (1752-1810).

25 February 1784
First ascent of a balloon in Italy; manufactured in Milan by Paolo Andreani and the Gerli brothers.

2 March 1784
First balloon flight by Jean-Pierre Blanchard; the Frenchman Jan Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) made his first flight in a balloon built by himself, from the "Champs de Mars” in Paris, a few weeks after the success of the Montgolfier brothers. Thereafter, he traveled throughout Europe, performing balloon flight demonstrations. He was the first to perform balloon flights in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and the U.S.A. In total, he made 59 balloon flights.

24 June 1784
First flight of a captive balloon in North America; the inventor Peter Carnes built a captive hot air balloon that took flight in Bladensburg. It is said that a boy of 13 years of age, Edward Warren from Baltimore, embarked on this balloon, since it was too small to carry its creator.

6 July 1784
First balloon flight in Austria; Johann Georg Stuwer (1732-1802) took off on his big balloon (1120 kg) in Prater, Vienna. More than 15,000 people came to see the takeoff.

27 August 1784
First ascent of a balloon on British soil; Mr. Tytler (a Scottish man?) took off in his hot air balloon (without a furnace) in Comely Garden, Edinburgh, and landed on the road to Restalrig, about a half mile away from the take-off site, to the great satisfaction of the spectators.  

15 September 1784
First balloon flight in England; the Italian balloonist Vincenzo Lunardi (1759-1806, born in Lucca), Secretary of the Ambassador Napolitano flew a hydrogen balloon from the Artillery Company area near Moorfields in London (carrying with him a cat, a dog, a dove and a bottle of wine) and landed in North Mimms, after his cat coming down with hypothermia (after 1 and 40 minutes and 20 km), resuming his journey to land in Long Mead Hertfordshire after a 24-mile flight.



4 October 1784
First balloon flight carried out by an Englishman; the "Father of English Ballooning,” James Sadler (1751 - 1828), held his first ascent in Oxford, his birth town, using a hot air balloon.

1785
Lunardi’s second balloon flight in England; Lunardi carried out twelve ascents in England until 19 September 1786, and later came to carry out other ascents in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

7 January 1785
First balloon to cross the English Channel; Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) and Dr. John Jeffries (USA) took off in England and landed in France after a journey of two hours and a half (first air mail delivery).
 
19 January 1785
First manned balloon flight in Ireland; the Irishman Richard Crosbie (1755-1800, born in Wicklow) took off at 14:30 from an exhibition area in Rangelagh Gardens in Dublin on his "Big Air Balloon and Vessel Flight”, with which he intended to cross the Irish Sea. The balloon boasted a splendid decoration with pictures of Minerva and Mercury holding the coat of Ireland and the emblematic figures of the winds. More than 35,000 people gathered at the site to watch the historic ascent. Due to early darkness, Crosbie decided to give up his attempt to cross the Irish Sea and landed in Clontarf. Before this flight, Crosbie had made several experiments in numerous balloons, having transported several animals instead of passengers. Later, he made other attempts to cross the Irish Sea but without success.

15 June 1785
First balloon accident; Pilâtre de Rozier (1756-1785) built a new type of balloon from a combination of two types of already known balloons (gas balloons and hot air balloons).  The result was first titled the "Charlo-Montgolfière balloon”, and later "Rozier”. The hydrogen housing is located on top of a cylindrical hot air balloon. He intended to cross the English Channel in this balloon. For six months, de Rozier and his assistant Pierre Jules Romain waited in Boulogne-sur-Mer (France) for atmospheric conditions favorable enough to cross the Channel. In the early morning of 15 June 1785, they were finally able to take off, but the balloon went adrift towards the sea. Suddenly, the wind’s direction changed and they returned over the Earth’s surface, but it was then that the unexpected happened, just 30 minutes after take-off: there was a fire on top of the balloon and it crashed to the ground. This attempt took the lives of the first two victims in aviation history.

3 October 1785
First flight of a manned balloon in Germany; Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) took off in Frankfurt/Main.

14 May 1790
First balloon flight carried out by a Polishman; Polish Count Jan Potocki and his Turkish butler Abrahim flew with Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) in his balloon from Warsaw. The first flight by Jean-Pierre Blanchard in Poland took place on 10 May 1789. He flew from Warsaw to Bialoleka.

12 August 1792
Lunardi’s balloon took off in Madrid; the Italian Vincenzo Lunardi took off in Madrid (Spain).

9 January 1793
First flight of a manned balloon in North America; Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) took off in the courtyard of the "Old Walnut Street Prison” in Philadelphia at 10:09, having landed 46 minutes later in Gloucester County (near Deptford), New Jersey. He flew 15 miles. President George Washington was present to attend the balloon take-off and Blanchard carried a letter of passage by President Washington, which read that all citizens of the United States should receive and support Blanchard with humanity and goodwill, helping bring honor to their country.

20 June 1803
First flight of a manned balloon in Russia; the flight was carried out by the Frenchman Jack Garnerain in St. Petersburg. On 18 July, the Frenchman was accompanied by the first Russian General Prince, S. L. Lvov.

16 March 1836
First flight of a manned balloon in India; Dimitri Robertson took off in his hot-air balloon in the "Garden Reach Road” garden in Calcutta.

7-8 November 1836
First long-distance flight in a balloon; British veteran pilot Charles Green (1785-1870) piloted the "Royal Vauxhall” with two passengers onboard (Monck Mason and Robert Holle) from London to Weilburg in the German duchy of Nassau, covering a distance 380 miles (770 km) for 18 hours.

8 September 1856
First successful balloon ride with passengers in Canada; the flight was conducted by Eugene Godard and three companions, between Montreal and Pointe Olivier, Quebec.

1858
First aerial photography; the French photographer and balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as "Nadar” (1820-1910) was the first to take aerial photographs of Paris, on a balloon in 1858 (in 1855 he patented the idea of using aerial photographs in mapmaking and surveying). This event prompted an editor to publish a satirical lithograph of Nadar photographing Paris over a balloon (see below). Later, Nadar came to build a giant balloon: "Le Geant”. It had a nacelle of two stories, with a maximum capacity for 15 people and with its own darkroom.
In 1863, Nadar flew in his balloon from Paris to Hannover (Germany).

1 July 1859
First official air mail flight; the American John Wise (1808-1879) and three passengers (J. La Montain, Hyde, O. A. Gager), during the rehearsal of a transatlantic flight that never came to pass, flew the "Atlantic” balloon from St. Louis to Henderson, New York in 20 hours and 40 minutes (the balloon was destroyed in a storm over Lake Ontario). They beat Green’s record with a flight of 809 miles (1292 km). The balloon carried a suitcase with correspondence addressed to an agent of the US Express Company.

17 June 1861
First telegraph transmission via air; the inventor and aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe (1832-1913) and representatives of the American Telegraph Company took off from the territory of the Columbia Armory in Washington in a specially equipped captive balloon, called the "Enterprise”, at an altitude of 500 feet. Using the telegraphic equipment onboard and cables running along one of the frame wires to the ground and from there to the War Department and the White House, Lowe was able to demonstrate the world’s first telegraph transmission via air. During the American Civil War, captive gas balloons were used by both the Union and Confederacy Armies, for the recognition and observation of troop movements as well as the preparation of terrain maps. The first American airship designed by Lowe for military purposes was ready to use on 28 August. Lowe organized and directed a Union ballooning military force during this war and also telegraphed the presence and position of the Confederacy infantry and heavy artillery from this captive balloon named the "Intrepid”.

1862
The first balloon flight of a Mexican aeronaut; Joaquin de la Cantolla y Rico (1837-1914) took off in Mexico City in a gas balloon called the the "Moctezuma”. The Emperor Maximilian witnessed the flight. The seal said that this was the first balloon flight carried out by a Mexican. However, other sources say that Cantolla was not the first Mexican balloonist. It appears that the first Mexican to travel in a balloon was Benito Leon Acosta (1818-?) on 1 May 1842. Between this flight and Cantolla’s flight, there were several balloon flights. The first balloon flight conducted in Mexico took place on 12 February 1835 and was conducted by the French balloonist Eugene Guillermo Robertson.

19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871
First use of balloons to carry refugees and mail from a beseiged city; during the Franco-Prussian war between 1870 and 1871, the city of Paris was completely cut off from the world by the Prussian army In all, 66 balloons were used by Parisians to carry 155 refugees, 354 pigeons and more than 2.5 million letters ("ballons montés”) out of Paris. The most prominent passenger was the French Interior Minister, Leon Gambetta, who flew on 7 October 1870 in the balloon "L’Arme Barbes.” The balloon took off at 11:10 from "Place Saint-Pierre” in Paris and landed about 4 hours later near Epineuse, 60 km from Paris.

1878
Ascents of bigger balloons of the time during the World Exhibition in Paris; the Frenchman Henri Giffard (1825-1882) took off, several times, in the biggest balloon at the time, the captive gas balloon "Le Grand Ballon Captif”, at an altitude of 600 m during the World Exhibition. In the nacelle there was room for 52 passengers and about 35,000 passengers were transported.

11 July 1897
First attempt at balloon flight to the North Pole; at 2:30, Salomon Andrée Auguste (1854-1897) took off with two companions (Nils Strindberg, Knut Fraenkel) in his "Örnen” balloon (the Eagle) on the island of Danskön, Spitsbergen. They failed to reach the North Pole and were missing until 1930. In the summer of 1930, the remains of the three men were found in their last camp on the "White Isle” east of Svalbard.

3 October 1898
First crossing of the High Alps by balloon; Captain Eduard Spelterini (1852-1931) took off in the "HB-BKS Wega II” in Sitten/Sion (Switzerland) and landed in Rivere, Dijon (France).

20 October 1898
Creation of the first organization for aeronautical sport; a group of French ballooning lovers, led by Count Henri de La Valette, created the "Aero-Club” of France. Its objective was "encouraging aerial locomotion in all its forms and in all its applications.”

12 April 1899
First gas ballooning contest; the competition was organized in France by the Aero-Club of France.

30 September 1906
First Gordon-Bennett ballooning race; the most prestigious ballooning race in the world took place in Paris and its winners were the Americans Lt. Frank P. Lahm (1877-1963) and Major H. B. Hersey, who landed in Searborough, England after having covered 647.98 km.

1907
First crossing at the mouth of the River Plate (Argentina) in balloon; Aaron de Anchorena (1877-1965) made the crossing in the "Pampero” balloon.

24 June 1916
First crossing of the Andes in a balloon; Eduardo Bradley and Angelo Zuloaga made the crossing in his balloon the "Edward Newbery”.

27 May 1931
First flight of a manned balloon into the stratosphere; Prof. Auguste Piccard (1884-1962), a Belgian-Swiss scientist, and Paul Kipfer made the first balloon journey in an airtight nacelle with the "FNRS” OO-BFH balloon, at an altitude of 15,781 meters. They took off in Augsburg (Germany) and made a forced landing on the Obergurgl glacier in Austria.

18 August 1932
Piccard’s second stratospheric flight; Prof. Auguste Piccard and M. Cousins rose into the stratosphere with the "FNRS” OO-BFH balloon, and set a new altitude record of 52,498 feet (16,940 m). They took off from the Dubendorf airfield and landed about 12 hours later in the Po plains in Italy.

30 September 1933
First Soviet stratospheric flight; Soviet scientists G. Prokofiev, E. Birnbaum and K. Godunov took off in the "CCCP-1” ("USSR-VR-62”) stratospheric balloon, reaching an altitude of 19,000 m.

30 January 1934
Second Soviet stratospheric flight; the scientists I. Usiskin, A.  Vlasenko and P. Fedoseyenko took flight in the "Ossoviachim-1” stratospheric balloon and reached an altitude of 22,000 m, but unfortunately the balloon crashed and all the crew members died in this accident.

11 November 1935
American stratospheric flight with a new altitude record; A.W. Stephens and O.A. Anderson took off for a place locally known as the "stratobowl” in South Dakota, in a giant helium gas balloon (3.7 billion cubic feet, 84,000 m³) with the name "Explorer II”, managing to reach an altitude of 72,395 feet (22,612 m). This altitude record was maintained for 21 years.

13 April 1963
First crossing of the English Channel in a hot air balloon; Ed Yost and Don Piccard flew three hours and 17 minutes in their "Channel Champ” hot air balloon, leaving England (take-off in Rye, Sussex) bound for France (landing on St Georges near Gravelines du Nord).

10 February 1973
First world hot air balloon championship; the first world championship was held in Albuquerque, NM, USA with the participation of 30 competitors. The first world champion was Dennis Flodden from the USA.

11 – 19 September 1976
First world championship for gas balloons; the world’s first gas balloon championship took place in Augsburg, Germany, and the winner was the Swiss team of Peter Peterka and Jean-Paul Kuenzi.

12-17 August 1978
First crossing of the Atlantic in a balloon; Maxie Anderson (1934-1983), Ben Abruzzo (1930-1985) and Larry Newman flew in the "Double Eagle II” gas balloon, from Presque Isle, Maine (USA) to Evreux (France), in 5 days, 17 hours and 6 minutes (orthodromic distance: 5001 km/3108 miles).

8-12 May 1980
First balloon crossing of the North American continent; the Americans Maxie Anderson and his son Kris flew in the "Kitty Hawk” gas balloon from Fort Baker, CA (USA) to Ste. Felicite, Quebec (Canada) in 4 days, 3 hours and 54 minutes (orthodromic distance: 4543 km/2823 miles).

10-12 November 1981
First balloon crossing of the Pacific Ocean; Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark (all American), and Rocky Aoki (Japanese) crossed the Pacific Ocean in three days, 12 hours and 31 minutes on their thirteen-story balloon "Double Eagle V”. The crew took off from Nagashima (Japan) and landed in Mendocino National Forest, Covelo, California (USA) (orthodromic distance: 8383 km/5209 miles).

26 July 1983
First Gordon-Bennett Cup after World War II; on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first balloon flight, the Aeronautics Gordon-Bennett Cup was held in Paris after an interval of 44 years. The winner of this race was a Polish team consisting of Stefan Makné and Ireneusz Cieslak, who landed their SP-BZO balloon near Regensburg, Germany, after a flight of 690 km.

14-18 September 1984
First solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic Ocean; Col. Joe W. Kittinger flew in his helium gas balloon "Rosie O’Grady’s Balloon of Peace”, covering 5703 km/3544 miles (Great Circle) from Caribou, Maine (USA) to Montenotte (Italy). The flight lasted 3 days, 11 hours and 45 minutes.

31 August – 2 September 1986
First crossing of the Atlantic in a Rozier balloon; the Dutch pilots Henk Brink, Evilien Brink and Willem Hageman flew a Rozier balloon called the "Dutch Viking” from St. Johns to Almere (Netherlands) in 51 hours and 14 minutes (orthodromic distance: 4058 km/2522 miles).

2-3 July 1987
First crossing of the Atlantic in a hot air balloon; at 8:10 UTC, Per Lindstre and Richard Branson took off in their G-USUK hot air balloon the "Virgin Atlantic Flyer” (then the world’s largest balloon with 60,521 m²), traveling from Sugar Loaf Mountain, Maine (USA) to Limavady (North Ireland) in 31 hours and 41 minutes (landing on the 3 July at 15:51 UTC, orthodromic distance: 4487 km/2788 miles).
 
15-17 January 1991
First crossing of the Pacific Ocean in a hot air balloon; Richard Branson and Per Lindstre took off in their hot air balloon the "Virgin Pacific Flyer” from Miyakonojo (Japan), landing 46 hours later 200 miles north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (Canada) (Great Circle: 7672 km/4767 miles Trajectory: 10,885 km/6764 miles).

21 October 1991
First flyby of Mount Everest in a hot air balloon; two hot air balloons took off at 6:40 from Gokyo (Nepal): the "Star Flyer I” manned by Chris Dewhurst and Leo Dickinson and the "Star Flyer II” manned by Andy Elson and Eric Jones. The first balloon to fly over Mount Everest was the "Star Flyer I” followed by the "Star Flyer II.” Both landed 1 hour and 20 minutes later on the plateau southeast of Sar, Tibet. The pilots flew 37 km and still beat two records with this flight: the highest take-off (15,536 feet, 4735 meters) and the highest landing (16,200 feet; 4940 meters).
 
9-14 February 1992
First crossing of the Atlantic in an east-west direction; Jesus Gonzalez Green and Tomas Feliu Rius (Spain) flew in their Rozier balloon "La Ciudad de Huelva” from "El Hierro” Canary Island (Spain) to Maturin (Venezuela) in 5 days, 9 hours and 10 minutes (orthodromic distance: 5046 km/3135 miles).

16-22 September 1992
Longest direct flight; the Americans Richard Abruzzo and Troy Bradley flew in the "Chrysler 5” Rozier balloon for 6 days and 16 minutes from Bangor, Maine (USA) to the outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco, during the First Transatlantic Balloon Race (orthodromic distance: 5340 km/3318 miles).

18 June 1993
First balloon flight from Australia; the Australian Richard Smith and John Wallington flew the "Australian Geographic Flyer” balloon for 40 hours and 20 minutes from Carnarvon to Tabulam (orthodromic distance: 3867 km/2403 miles).

17-21 February 1995
First solo balloon crossing of the Pacific Ocean; the American Steven Fossett took off in Seoul (South Korea) and traveled for 4 days, 8 hours and 14 minutes in the "Pacific Peregrine” balloon towards Mendham, Saskatchewan (Canada) (Great Circle: 8748 km/5436 miles; Trajectory: 9900 km/6152 miles).

12 December 1995
First balloon flight in Antarctica; the American Bill Arras took off at 9:25 in his N51158 hot air balloon "JIMI” in the "Patriot Hills” camp.

7-16 August 1998
First crossing of the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean; it was Steven Fossett’s fourth attempt to go around the world. He flew alone in his "Solo Spirit 3” balloon for 8 days, 13 hours and 59 minutes from the Malvinas Football Stadium in Mendoza (Argentina) to the vicinity of the Chesterfield Islands in the Pacific Ocean. (Great Circle: 22,910 km/14,236 miles; Trajectory: 24,494 km/15,220 miles)

18-25 December 1998
First crossing of Asia in a balloon; Lindstrom (Sweden), Richard Branson (UK) and Steven Fossett (USA) took off from Marrakech (Morocco) in order to go around the world and flew the "ICO Global Challenger” for 7 days, 9 hours and 57 minutes over 21 countries, landing near Oahu island (Hawaii) (Great Circle: 19,962 km/12,404 miles; Trajectory: 21,500 km/13,359 miles).

1 – 21 March 1999
First nonstop circumnavigation of the world in a balloon; the pilots Bertre Piccard (Swiss) and Brian Jones (British) took off on their grand balloon the "Breitling Orbiter 3” at 8:05 GMT from Chateau d’Oex in the Swiss Alps and flew to Italy, the Mediterranean, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Arabian Sea, India, Bangladesh, Burma, China, Thailand, the Pacific, Mexico , Guatemala, Belize, the west-southwest of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Atlantic, the Western Sahara desert, Mauritania, Algeria, Niger and Egypt. After 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes of travel, they landed at 9:00 GMT at a far desert location in West Egypt, near Mut. The distance covered was 45,755 km/28,431 miles (trajectory). They reached the goal of their journey around the world on 20 March at 9:54 GMT, when they flew at 9 degrees and 27 minutes west longitude in Mauritania. (Orthodromic distance: 40,814 km/25,361 miles)