Special forms of flight. I: Balloons, gliders, and hang gliders.

Two hundred years ago the Montgolfier brothers first demonstrated to the world that man-carrying "engines for flying" were possible. Their vehicle, however, did not have "artificiall Wings" but was a balloon filled with hot air. (A Brazilian, Bartolomeu de Gusmao, had flown a small unmanned hot air balloon 74 years earlier.') After successful unmanned demonstrations the first recorded free flight by man took place on 21 November 1783, when Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier, a doctor, and Francois Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes, undertook a 25 minute flight over Paris in a Montgolfier balloon (in contrast to a Charlier balloon, which is one filled with a gas that is lighter than air and also flew manned in the same year). Since that auspicious beginning man has landed on the moon and sent machines to other planets. Non-powered balloon flight has played a vital part in this amazing advance and still retains a place of its own in modern