A Brief History Of 19th Century High-Altitude Balloon Flights & Their Roles In Weather Forecasting

The first men known to have achieved untethered flight were the Frenchmen Jean-Franois Piltre de Rozier and Franois Laurent d’Arlandes on November 21, 1783. Man would continue flying and even adding engines to balloons through the 19th century. Man first flew (or floated) 120 years before the Wright Brothers’ first manned, heavier-than-air, powered, sustained flight in 1903. What is little known is that before the Wright Brothers, Victorians enjoyed many a dare-devil high-altitude balloon flight.