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First in Flight: Montgolfier Balloon Tattoo

Posted on April 13, 2009

Sure, the Wright Brothers get the fame and glory for being the first to create and pilot a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine, but it was a pair of brothers 120 years earlier who found a way to allow a human to see the world from the air.

Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier were born into a French family known as paper manufacturers in the 1740′s. Joseph with an inventors heart and Jacques with a business brain, the two started experimenting with hot-air lift after Joseph witnessed clothes billowing under a fire that was being used to dry them. On June 4th 1783, they performed their first public experiment with a balloon reaching around 6000 feet over 2 km. Their first “manned” balloon carrying a sheep, duck, and rooster took flight on September 19, 1783.

Finally on November 21, 1783 the brothers succeeded in launching the first manned ascent using a balloon they designed — carrying a young physician, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, and a ZFrench army officer, François Laurent d’Arlandes. The flight flew over nine miles and reached an altitude of 3000 feet before landing.

The early flights of the Montgolfier balloons created a sensation in France — engravings, paintings, furniture, and dishes carried the image of the famous (and decorative) balloon. Certainly if tattoos were more in the public vogue of the time, people would have been walking around with permanent tributes of the balloon on their skin.

This particular tribute – coming 226 years later, was created by tattoo artist Katie Davis of Salvation Tattoo Gallery in Richmond, VA.

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