A Museum Tour Through Aviation History

Balloons and Airships (Gallery 206)

The rest of this tour through aviation history, with the National Air and Space Museum as our guide, will proceed more or less in chronological order, rather than follow the physical layout of the Museum. Also, because the Museum's exhibits change from time to time, I'll indicate in the narrative the year in which my museum photos were taken if the exhibits differed at that time from what exists as this is being written (February 2000). Therefore, our next stop will be the "Balloons and Airships" gallery, which highlights some of the most noteworthy lighter-than-air craft in history. This exhibit was on display when I visited the Museum in 1981, but has since been replaced by an exhibit on World War I Aviation.

Montgolfier Balloon
(1783)

The brothers Joseph and Atienne Mongolfier of France invented the hot air balloon in 1783 and, in September of that year, held a demonstration for the King and Queen of France by sending a sheep, a rooster, and a duck on a balloon flight. In November 1783, two Frenchmen, J.F. Pilatre de Rozier and Maquis d'Arlandes, ascended in a Montgolfier balloon at Versailles and flew over the city of Paris. The flight was witnessed by Benjamin Franklin. Just a few weeks later, in December 1783, J.A.C. Charles made the first manned flight in a balloon filled with hydrogen. And by 1785, a balloon was piloted across the English Channel. The reality of human flight, although unpowered, had arrived.

Goodyear Blimp "Pilgrim"
(1925)

By 1915, the use of hydrogen balloons and dirigibles for aerial reconnaisance had become commonplace. With the outbreak of World War I, the Germans began to also use their dirigibles for bombing ground targets. With the end of the War, the civilian uses of lighter-than-air craft began to take prominence. In the United States, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company constructed a fleet of small, helium-filled airships known as "blimps." The first of these was the Goodyear Blimp "Pilgrim," which made its first flight on June 3, 1925. It had a top speed of 40 mph and a range of about 525 miles. By the time the "Pilgrim" was retired in 1931, it had made 4,765 flights and carried more than 5,350 passengers. The gondola from the "Pilgrim" is part of the collection of the National Air and Space Museum.

Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk
(1932)

During the 1930s, the U.S. Navy began experimenting with the use of blimps (many built by Goodyear) and dirigibles for maritime reconnaisance. Two of the largest of these Navy airships were the dirigibles "USS Macon" and "USS Akron." An intriguing innovation the Navy also began to test was the possibility of stationing small biplane fighter aircraft on the two large airships. The Curstiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk was just the plane the Navy was looking for and, in June 1932, the first of eight Sparrowhawks were delivered to the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The planes were carried on the underside of the airships and then lowered on large hooks and then released. The tricky part for the pilots, however, was to fly back to the airship and carefully close in to and capture the hooks hanging just below the belly of the airship. Although there was not a single operational loss of a Sparrowhawk in such missions, both the "Macon" and the "Akron" were lost at sea. The last operational Sparrowhawk was retired in 1939.

Dirigible "Hindenburg"
(1937)

Perhaps the most famous of all airships is the German "Hindenburg," an 804-foot, hydrogen-filled dirigible that took up to 100 passengers in utter luxury across the Atlantic. However, on May 6, 1937, as the airship prepared to moor at its destination at Lakehurst, New Jersey, something (still unknown to this day) happened that ignited the hydrogen and sent the majestic airship crashing to the ground in flames. Thirty-five of the 97 persons on board were killed in the accident. Although unproven rumors persisted that anti-Nazi activists had planted a bomb aboard the "Hindenburg," the most likely cause of the explosion was static electricity igniting the highly combustible hydrogren. After the "Hindenburg" accident, the use of nonflammable helium became the standard for dirigibles, blimps, and high-altitude balloons.

Helium Balloon "Double Eagle II"
(1978)

On August 11, 1978, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman lifted off from Presque Islands, Maine in their helium-filled balloon "Double Eagle II" in their second attempt to cross the Atlantic by balloon. The gondola, which was called "The Spirit of Albuquerque," was equipped with a twin-hulled catamaran in case of an emergency water landing. But this wasn't needed, as the trio successfully completed the historic flight when they landed 137 hours, 6 minutes later at Miserey, France, about 60 miles northwest of Paris. During the crossing, the "Double Eagle II" had descended as low as 3,500 feet and soared as high as 24,950 feet. Only one more ballooning record remained to be broken.

Helium Balloon "Breitling Orbiter 3"
(1999)

That final ballooning record was achieved by Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones on March 21, 1999, when they landed in southwestern Egypt after an unbelievable 19 day, 21 hour, 55 minute non-stop flight around the world. In the pressurized gondola suspended from their "Breitling Orbiter 3" helium-filled ballon, they had started their record-setting flight at Chateau d'Oex, Switzerland on March 1st, headed south across the Mediterranean Sea to Morroco, and then eastward and around the world. The flight of the "Breitling Orbiter 3" accomplished one of the (if not "the" last of the) remaining great aviation feats. [Note: Although the gondola of the "Breitling Orbiter 3" is located in the Milestones of Flight gallery at the National Air and Space Museum, I have included it here for continuity of the story of balloons and airships.]

Modern Hot Air Balloon
(1990)

About 110 years elapsed between the advent of lighter-than-air flight, as represented by the Montgolfier balloon, and the first unpowered heavier-than-air flights of Otto Lilienthal. The next stop on our tour will be the Early Flight gallery, which includes one of Lilienthal's gliders.

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Last Updated: January 1, 2003