Freeflight

We're writing a coffee-table book on ballooning scheduled for release next spring. One of our objectives in the book is to get the history of balloons right. For all pre-modern balloon history, we must rely on books.

According to Christopher & Maureen Lynch of Valhalla Aerostation in Glen Falls, New York, who deal in lighter-than-air books and memorabilia, there are about 4000 books on ballooning. Brent (Stockwell) and I have about 200 LTA books in our collection, beginning with "Astra Castra," by Hatton Turner, published in London in 1865, which contains eyewitness accounts of many early flights, including those made in the Montgolfier Brothers first balloons, and Professor Charles's first gas flight.

Our library contains good resources for compiling an early history. To verify information, or resolve conflicting information of historical flights and procedures, we compare accounts made at the time by different people. Getting the early history of ballooning right is difficult, but since we weren't there to talk to the early aeronauts (although some days we feel old enough to have been there), we have to rely on reports in old books.

(By the way, after some fruitless attempts to verify data in cyberspace, I have concluded the Internet and World Wide Web are not viable research tools, at least for this project. There is a lot of bad information, misinformation, and just plain fabrication out there, posing as historical fact.)

When it comes to the modern history of ballooning, it's a different story. Most of the people important in the development of the balloon are alive and able to provide information, dates, and data. We've contacted all hot-air balloon pioneers. We've had no response from a few, but great cooperation from Ed Yost, Jim Winker, Don Piccard, Don Cameron, and Phil Kavanagh, who have been or are currently affiliated with balloon manufacturing companies. Fredrick Eshoo, creator of the first controllable solar hot-air balloon SUNSTAT responded enthusiastically to our request for information. Tom Heinsheimer, creator of ATMOSAT, the first superpressure gas balloon, designed to test air quality in the Los Angeles basin, immediately sent stories, data and photos.

The most important person in the chapter on the modern history of balloons is Paul "Ed" Yost, the inventor of the modern hot-air balloon. We wrote Yost a letter asking if we could interview him over the phone. He called and said "There's too much stuff, you've just got to come down here." Since Brent and I couldn't both go, and since I am a very generous person, I made arrangements for Brent to visit with Ed and Susie Yost in New Mexico the next week.

Visiting Yost was the right thing to do. He has kept a meticulous record of the development of the hot-air balloon, beginning in 1956. He has an impressive collection of annotated scrapbooks and journals, which he made available to Brent, in addition to answering questions and telling stories.

Yost and 3 others formed Raven Industries in 1956. The first modern hot-air balloon was flown in Bruning, Nebraska on 22 October 1960; the envelope was plastic film, the air was heated by 5 plumber's pots burning white gasoline, and the pilot (Yost) sat on a plywood board supported by loops of steel cable.

By the next flight the balloon had a nylon envelope, a canvas seat, and a propane heater; Raven Industries sold its first sport balloon in November 1961. With the addition of a basket, the hot-air balloon Ed Yost created in 1961 is very similar to the hot-air balloon you can buy today.

Ed Yost is a walking encyclopedia of ballooning knowledge and know-how. He has achieved many ballooning "firsts," in addition to building and flying the first modern hot-air balloon. In 1963 he made the first hot-air balloon inflation in England at Cardington Hangar. On 13 April 1963, Yost and Don Piccard crossed the English Channel in a hot-air balloon, an endeavor suggested and eagerly supported by Charles Dollfus. (The only previous attempt was the failed and fatal flight made by Pilatre de Rozier in 1783.) In October 1976, Yost made a 2,500 mile flight from Maine to east of the Azores in the "Silver Fox," a 60,046 cubic foot gas balloon he built for the journey. He was aloft 4.5 days in an open basket wearing slacks, a sport shirt, and windbreaker. Long distance ballooning has gotten more complicated, but it may not have gotten any better.