Like a balloon with a basket. Who invented the hot air balloon? Montgolfier brothers

Having your own hot air balloon is a childhood dream for many. Today it is possible not only to purchase it, but also to make it yourself. How? Read on!

Buy a balloon

Today, several stores both abroad and in Russia offer to buy balloons and balloon shells. New Russian-made thermal aerostats (heat balloons) cost about 700 thousand rubles with all the necessary components - shell, basket, burner, fan, air intake, etc. Most of the price is for the shell - 300-400 thousand rubles. The cost with a basket made in the Czech Republic starts from 30 thousand dollars, in England - from 40 thousand euros.

Used balloons can be purchased from 400-500 thousand rubles for a complete set. In addition to the cost of the device itself, the balloon owner will have to spend money on:

gas consumption;
registration and certification in the Federal Air Transport Agency;
annual renewal of the certificate of airworthiness;
remuneration for the pilot (possibly for his training);
remuneration for ground maintenance crew, etc.

DIY balloon with basket: dome

If you decide to design your own hot air balloon, the first thing you should do is the canopy. For it you need to purchase durable nylon - polyester or polyamide. It is important that the material does not allow air to pass through - cover the reverse side of the fabric with liquid polyurethane or silicone.

The next step is to cut the nylon into segments of the required size, which are sewn together with especially strong threads. The hole for inflating a balloon with a basket is lined with a protective layer of material that is resistant to high temperatures.

To make the dome more durable, it is additionally sheathed vertically and horizontally with fabric strips. They are fixed at the very top of the dome, and the lower edges of the ribbons are attached to the ropes of the hanging basket.

How to make a balloon: basket

Traditionally, the walls of the basket are woven from grapevine, and the bottom is made of so-called marine plywood, which is resistant to temperature changes and other extreme conditions. The frame is steel cables made of stainless material. They secure the basket to the dome. The cables are covered with special leather covers to protect them from damage.

It is also necessary to design special hangers where luggage and aeronautics accessories will be stored.

Important element: burner

Before making a balloon, you need to carefully consider the design of the burner. Its fuel currently is liquefied propane. The average power of the device is 4.5-6.0 thousand megawatts. You should purchase special burners for balloons, which are made of durable stainless steel using a special technology that allows the device to withstand large temperature changes.

Your own balloon: instructions

It is, of course, difficult to make a passenger balloon at home, but making a test paper balloon with a basket with your own hands is quite possible. You will need:

thick paper;
thin paper (so-called tissue paper);
glue;
threads;
leg-split;
scissors;
pencil;
long ruler;
triangle.

Now let's get to work:

The number and size of the cut strips will depend on the diameter of your ball. If it is 1.5 m, then 12 strips will be needed, 2 m - 16, 2.5 m - 20, 3 m - 24.
To draw an even template, first draw a vertical line on the paper equal to the length of the future strip. Through it, draw perpendicular segments at a certain distance equal to the limits of the width of the segment. The end points of the segments are connected by a smooth line, which will be the outline of the strip.
Using the cardboard template, trace and cut out the outlines of the segments on tissue paper. The most convenient way is to put several layers of it on top of each other, forming a pack, and cut out several segments at once.
The segments are first glued together with “boats”. Then these “boats” need to be glued to one another. Before sealing the last seam, turn the structure out so that it has the shape of a ball.
The base of the ball is held together with glued strips of paper and twine - this design will hold the ball when heated.
Cover the top of the dome with a circle of the same tissue paper.
After the glue has dried, straighten the dome by holding it over a blowtorch.
A basket for special cargo can be attached to the structure using the same string.

To launch the ball, turn on the burner or light a fire, hold your ball over the heat source without letting go of the string. Once the air inside your homemade balloon has warmed up, it can be released into flight.

Thus, you can make a balloon with a basket with your own hands at home. But passenger balloons can only be purchased or rented.

It's hard to imagine, isn't it, that a wicker balloon basket would cost as much as a new Rolls Roice - more than half a million dollars? But it is precisely in such a basket that Fyodor Konyukhov will fly on a solo trip around the globe. Of course, it is not wicker at all, it is crammed with electronics and modern equipment, and looks more like a bathyscaphe than a good old balloon gondola...

The gondola of the Morton balloon, on which Konyukhov will fly, was designed and manufactured specifically for this project in Bristol, England. It is simultaneously a cabin for controlling the flight of the ball, a residential building for Fedor, and a lifeboat with full autonomy for up to 7 days. Here there is a navigation room, a place to sleep, a stove on which you can warm up food - this is the minimum of amenities that a pilot has in a gondola. It took almost a year to manufacture and fully equip the gondola, and the cost exceeded 500 thousand dollars.
An international express delivery network was deployed to dispatch this unusual and fragile cargo from Bristol. The route was designed specifically to take into account the oversized dimensions of the gondola so that only the largest DHL aircraft were used along the entire route, allowing the loading and safe transportation of such non-standard cargo. First, from Bristol by road it was delivered to the East Midlands, then by plane it followed the route: Bristol - Leipzig - Bangkok - Singapore - Sydney, and then from Sydney the official expedition vehicle, a Toyota Hilux, delivered the gondola to the team's base in Northam.
Below you can see what this technological basket looks like inside...

2. The gondola is made of ultra-strong and lightweight carbon fiber and has dimensions of 2x2.2x1.6 m. You can enter the gondola through a hatch located on the roof, which also serves as an observation window.
Two keels are installed under the bottom of the gondola to maintain buoyancy in case of a forced landing in the ocean. Inside, the gondola resembles a lifeboat compartment with an autonomy of up to 7 days.

3. As such, the gondola does not have front or rear parts. But conditionally they can be defined as follows: where all the navigation equipment is located - the front part, and where the life support systems are located - the rear part.
The navigator's place looks impressive. The entire front panel is filled with displays, instruments and control toggle switches.
The center console has a large multifunction navigator display

4. Navigation table and logbook on it.
Navigation equipment and radio communications are similar to those installed in the aircraft cockpit. Without them, it would be impossible to obtain permission to take off and fly in the active air traffic zone.

5. The gondola is equipped with an autopilot. What does this mean, you ask, since a hot air balloon does not have wings, an elevator, or any rudder at all? The task of the autopilot is to maintain the ball in a given altitude range, preventing it from leaving the air flow.
This is done by controlling the burners. When necessary, the air under the balloon shell is heated, and when necessary, part of the warm air is released.

6. Work notes of Fedor Konyukhov for radio exchange with air traffic controllers. The letters here are called not as we are used to, but according to the first sounds in English words: A - Alpha, B - Bravo, etc... Moreover, these words are clearly defined and used by air traffic controllers around the world.

7. There is also an SOS button for the COSPAS-SARSAT global rescue system
This is an international satellite system, which is one of the main parts of the global maritime distress rescue system and is designed to detect and determine the location of ships, aircraft, and other objects that have suffered an accident.
It functions as follows. A buoy of this system is purchased, which, in fact, is a kind of “insurance policy”.
Its cost is quite high, which allows the rescue system to accumulate very large sums, which are used, if necessary, to organize a rescue operation. Sometimes such operations cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The first practical case of saving people using the system occurred on September 10, 1982, still at the stage of testing the technical means of the system, when the Soviet satellite Kosmos-1383 relayed a distress signal from a small plane that crashed in the mountains of Canada. The emergency signal via satellite was received by a Canadian ground station. As a result of the rescue operation, three people were saved. At the beginning of 2002, more than 10,000 people were rescued using the COSPAS-SARSAT system. In 1998 alone, 385 rescue operations were carried out, resulting in the rescue of 1,334 people.
The number of rescue buoy modules sold currently exceeds 1 million

8. Control of the cabin life support system. It is equipped with a stove, because... at an altitude of 5-10 km, at which the flight will take place for 2 weeks, it is very cold. No down jacket will save you, so you need to heat the air in the cabin.
For technical reasons, the cabin cannot be made hermetically sealed, like an airplane cabin, so that it would be comfortable to stay in for the entire two weeks of the flight.
The fact is that during the flight, Fedor will have to climb to the top of the gondola more than once to work with the burners, unfasten the empty gas cylinders and switch the gas supply hoses from empty cylinders to full ones.

9. The alarm clock that Fyodor had on his boat when he sailed across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

10. Work notes... They will be useful there, in the sky, during the expedition

11. The rear part of the gondola, also known as the household part. Pockets for small items, heating pipes through which warm air will circulate

12.

13. The internal volume is not as big as it might seem. There is a navigation panel in the front, lockers on the sides, which also serve as a sleeping area. In them, below, necessary things, food, and water supplies are stored.

14. Upper part of the gondola. It is no less technologically advanced than the internal one. This is a system of burners that must work flawlessly during the entire flight at extreme altitudes and extreme temperatures.

15. Gondola suspension. Steel cables are passed through the carbon body all the way through.

16. The outer part of the stove.

17. Entry point for cables coming from external navigation equipment.

18. Burners from below during test starts.

19. GPS transmitters are located about a meter from the gondola on the outer booms. Several GoPro cameras will also be mounted here, powered on a permanent basis. Control from the gondola using a remote control. If you turn it on for continuous recording, the memory card won't last long...

20. OKO telemetry module, which will monitor Fedor’s flight.
This unique device was designed by engineers of the Russian Technical Society, which is one of the technological partners in the preparation of Fyodor Konyukhov’s round-the-world flight in a Morton balloon.
The device is a cube 17x17x17 cm. It is equipped with an on-board computer that will record flight characteristics and parameters: flight altitude, atmospheric pressure, GPS/GLONASS coordinates, gondola movement speed, flight direction, ambient temperature, acceleration, roll, light level, radiation level, etc. In total, the module will monitor more than 20 different parameters. In addition, the device has a built-in photo-video camera that will take 1 photo every 2 minutes during the two-week flight. Autonomous power supply using solar panels.

21. Every evening for a week, the expedition Toyota Hilux rolls out a trailer with a gondola from the hangar for Fedor Konyukhov to practice his skills in working with burners. In the evening light it looks very beautiful!

22. During the flight, Fedor will have to constantly wear warm overalls and use an oxygen mask to breathe. A huge oxygen tank will also be located in the gondola.

A series of reports on the preparation of Fyodor Konyukhov's round-the-world expedition is carried out thanks to the expedition sponsor and the team's official car

Sergei Anashkevich writes: Flying in a hot air balloon alone, and around the world at that, is not like a walk in the park on a bicycle. Until you see with your own eyes a giant 56-meter-high balloon, a gondola stuffed with equipment, three huge trailers with 15 thousand cubes of helium and spend several days at the expedition preparation headquarters, you will not fully understand the scale of the project and the seriousness of preparations for a circumnavigation in a hot air balloon.

One day of preparation for Fyodor Konyukhov’s circumnavigation of the world in a hot air balloon

It's a winter Australian morning and we arrive at the hangar at 10am. Despite the fact that the day before the work here continued until late in the evening, both Toyota Hiluxes in which Fedor’s team travels are already at the base, the hangar gates are open and the team is all at work.
By the way, don’t be surprised by the “winter morning”. It’s summer in Russia now, warm, sunny... Here, in the west of Australia, it’s almost like in January in the Crimea: it’s quite dank, cold, low, heavy clouds are constantly hanging overhead, and the sun is almost invisible...
In fact, these are very good conditions for such an expedition, because at the altitudes where the flight will take place, it is very cold both in winter and in summer, so starting from cool weather is much more comfortable and safer for the body than from 30-degree heat. After all, literally within 20-30 minutes Fedor will rise to a height of about 5 thousand meters, where there is already a good “minus”, and such a sharp temperature change may not have a very good effect on the traveler’s body.
But let's return to our hangar. Or rather, let's go inside and see what's happening there...

2. To prepare, the team rented a large hangar from the Australian Northam flying club, in which they can store equipment and cylinders, set up equipment regardless of weather conditions, and conduct some training.
Since the Morton balloon was built by Cameron Balloons in Bristol, England, the company's specialists traveled with the team to Australia to complete the final installation of all components of the balloon and gondola, set up numerous equipment and provide comprehensive support to the pilot during preparation.

3. The entire hangar is filled with pallets, cylinders, boxes and boxes with all kinds of equipment, technical components that arrive and arrive daily. Something is pre-ordered and delivered from all over the world, something is looked for and bought on the spot, wandering all over the area and to Perth, something they make themselves...

4. On the wall with notes I saw an unusual infographic of a future trip, drawn by Fedor’s grandson.
After the start, such things need to be taken into the home archive... Someday they will fetch a very high price at auction

5. One of the leading Cameron Balloons specialists, Pete Johnson, who designed and built the burner, as well as the entire air mixture heating control system for the balloon shell, Morton is also at the team’s Australian base and is completing calculations for the placement of cylinders around the gondola

6. I managed to sneak a peek at what she would look like.
Along with the balloon and gondola, 35 huge propane cylinders will fly, which will heat the air under the balloon, preventing it from sinking down or providing additional heat to rise upward.
The team calculated that 22-25 cylinders are needed for the flight, another 5 cylinders are needed to constantly maintain a minimum flame in the burners (after all, it will be very difficult to ignite them in rarefied conditions and at low temperatures). The remaining cylinders are a reserve in case of various emergency situations: gas was released from a working cylinder, the flight duration increased, a filled cylinder was cut off by mistake, etc.

6. These are the propane cylinders themselves. Each of them is above human post

7. But not only gas cylinders will go into the sky with the balloon.
There will also be a huge oxygen tank on board. The fact is that not a single person can survive 2 weeks at extreme altitudes without additional oxygen, so Fedor will constantly have to breathe with a mask with a special oxygen mixture during the flight. Much like combat fighter pilots and Everest conquerors.
But that's not all the gas...

8. The main volume of gas is still located behind the team’s hangar, in three huge car trailers in such multi-meter cylinders. 6 on each trailer. This is the helium with which the shell of the Morton balloon will be filled before the launch. There are 15 thousand cubic meters of gas here!!! By the way, its cost is almost 250 thousand dollars!

9. Ask, where is the ball itself? The gondola was seen, gas, helium and oxygen were seen, but the shell was not seen. It's still in this container, to the right of the gray Hilux. The shell is the most valuable thing and is protected from any outside influence. They will take it out just before the launch, lay it out on the airfield and immediately inflate it to minimize contact with the ground. The fact is that it is quite fragile and any damage on the ground can lead to the fact that during the flight helium will begin to escape through the damage and then the expedition may fail.

10. On the right is Oscar Konyukhov, Fyodor’s son and head of the expeditionary headquarters. Together with a second Cameron Balloons technician, they discuss future launch strategy by studying meteorologists' forecasts. Now their task is to find a weather window for launch. Previously, it was planned for today, June 25, but then it shifted. For now, the start is planned for July 1.

11. And here is the pilot himself at the base. Fedor, like the team, is at the base all day, studying the operation of the equipment and undergoing dozens of instructions. This includes controlling the balloon, radio exchange with air traffic controllers, working with air flows, and even banal photo and video shooting during the flight. Here on earth, it seems that everything is clear. And there, at an altitude of 5-10 thousand, in constant cold, with oxygen starvation, in thick warm overalls, wearing gloves...

12. Konyukhov spends almost all his time in the gondola. In the next 2 weeks it will become his home. He doesn’t allow almost anyone inside; the price of any accident due to carelessness or ignorance of the guest is too high.

13. Pete has completed the layout of the cylinders and is now telling Fedor and Oscar how it will all look in reality and according to what scheme Fedor will need to connect new cylinders after the gas in the previous ones runs out.

14. Then they move on to emergency measures to ignite the burners if suddenly one of them goes out.
At an altitude of 5-10 km, at -50 and strong winds, you cannot bring a match to light the gas.
Almost a dozen different devices will be taken on the flight to solve this problem, because... if the gas does not burn, the ball will not be able to fly and will fall down.
This is... yes, yes, a lighter. Only flint. A spark can be struck from flint under any conditions.

15. This is how it works.

16. This is another device for striking a spark

17. This is what Fedor’s food will look like during the flight. The team ordered special expedition food, which is taken with them, for example, by the conquerors of Everest. The main thing is small volume, high energy and ease of preparation, because Fedor will not have a kitchen at its best

18. The overalls that Konyukhov will wear during the flight. In it he set a record for being in the air in an open cockpit, which I talked about in the last post, in which he climbed Everest...

20. The Australian winter is very unpredictable... After lunch, the sun suddenly appears and the gondola is rolled out onto the street with the help of a Toyota Hilux. Solar panels are also brought here, which will also go into the sky to charge them while there is sun

21. Chief controller of the team. Always checks on everyone to see who is doing what and what they are doing...

22. They brought sand for ballast.

23. With the help of these multi-ton bags, the balloon gondola will be held during the filling of the shell, so that it does not rise into the sky ahead of time.

24. After lunch, training begins on moving Fedor along the roof of the cabin during the flight and working with cylinders. Every time the gas in the next cylinder runs out, Konyukhov will have to climb to the roof, remove the reducer from the empty cylinder and put it on the full one. To prevent the system from going out at this time, there are two circuits in it that operate independently. When the gas in the cylinder runs out in one circuit, the cylinder in the other circuit is half full at that time. Those. always one cylinder is full, the second is half full. Half ends, the second is just half. You connect the full one, the next time it runs out in another, half will remain here... And so on until the end of the flight.

25. Moving on the roof only with a safety belt.
Used balloons will be cut off to make the balloon lighter. They are cut only over the ocean. When the balloon flies over land, it is prohibited to cut off the cylinders in order to avoid you know what...

26. Coffee break..

27. Portable GPS navigators have arrived. They will duplicate the operation of the on-board system just in case. Fedor studies the menu and functions

28. At the very end of the day, work on everyday issues. One of the important moments during the flight is getting warm water for tea and heating food... Of course, you won’t be able to get boiling water, but it’s quite possible to heat water from the stove.

29. Well, the traditional burner test completes the program of the day. Pete drives up the team's Hilux pickup truck, which is indispensable in this process, and connects the cylinders to the system.

30. In the sky they will be attached to a gondola, but for now they are working from the back of a Toyota Hilux, the official vehicle of the expedition.

31. At sunset it all looks amazingly beautiful

32. Turn on the burners!

33. And with a roar, tongues of flame soar into the sky. The sky is such that you won’t even understand where the gas is burning and where the sky itself is

34.

35.

36. After half an hour of testing and working out algorithms for working with gas, the gondola is rolled back into the hangar...
The day's program is completed for today

37. Well, the evening ends in the house where the expeditionary headquarters is based.
Fragrant barbecue, kangaroo and lamb steaks, great company and delicious Australian beer...
And tomorrow morning back to the hangar

The gondola of the Morton balloon, on which Konyukhov will fly, was designed and manufactured specifically for this project in Bristol, England. It is simultaneously a cabin for controlling the flight of the ball, a residential building for Fedor, and a lifeboat with full autonomy for up to 7 days. Here is a navigation room, a place to sleep, a stove on which you can warm up food, this is the minimum of amenities that a pilot has in a gondola. It took almost a year to manufacture and fully equip the gondola, and the cost exceeded 500 thousand dollars.
An international express delivery network was used to dispatch such a unique and fragile cargo from Bristol. The route was designed specifically to take into account the oversized dimensions of the gondola so that only the largest DHL aircraft were used along the entire route, allowing the loading and safe transportation of such non-standard cargo. First, it was delivered from Bristol by road to the East Midlands, then by plane it followed the route: Bristol - Leipzig - Bangkok - Singapore - Sydney, and then from Sydney the official expedition vehicle, a Toyota Hilux, delivered the gondola to the team's base in Northam.

Below you can see what this technological basket looks like inside...

9. The alarm clock that Fyodor had on his boat when he sailed across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

10. Work notes... They will be useful there, in the sky, during the expedition

11. The rear part of the gondola, also known as the household part. Pockets for small items, heating pipes through which warm air will circulate

12.

13. The internal volume is not as big as it might seem. There is a navigation panel in the front, lockers on the sides, which also serve as a sleeping area. Necessary things, food, and water supplies are stored in them below.

15. Gondola suspension. Steel cables are passed through the carbon body all the way through.

16. The outer part of the stove.

17. Entry point for cables coming from external navigation equipment.

18. Burners from below during test starts.

22. During the flight, Fedor will have to constantly wear warm overalls and use an oxygen mask to breathe. A huge oxygen tank will also be located in the gondola.

The name of this lighter-than-air aircraft speaks for itself. A huge shell made of gas-impermeable material - rubberized fabric or plastic - is inflated either with warm air, which is known to be lighter than cold air, or with a light gas (hydrogen or helium), and the balloon rises, carrying a basket with passengers with it.

The balloon, inflated with warm air, was called a hot air balloon - after the French brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. In the summer of 1783, they built a hot air balloon, the first passengers of which were a ram and a rooster.

The flight was successful. Having made sure that flights were safe, people began to fly in hot air balloons. The first such flight was made in November of the same 1783 by the French Pilatre de Rosier and d'Arland. Thus began the era of aeronautics - flights on lighter-than-air aircraft.

Since hot air balloons flew for a very short time - they sank down as soon as the air in them cooled - flying on them was only purely entertaining. For flights for practical, military and scientific purposes, balloons inflated with hydrogen or helium began to be used.

In the 30s XX century Several high-altitude balloons were built to study the upper layers of the atmosphere - stratospheric balloons. So that people could stay at high altitudes for a long time and not suffer from a lack of oxygen, the stratospheric balloon gondola in which the crew was located was made airtight. Strato balloons with such cabins reached altitudes of over 20 km.

However, a free-flying balloon is a toy of the wind. It flies not where the crew wants, but where the air flow pulls it. Therefore, uncontrolled balloons have not become widespread. They were first replaced by controlled balloons - airships, and then by heavier-than-air aircraft - airplanes and helicopters. True, during the First and Second World Wars, the armies of many countries used tethered balloons connected to the ground surface with a strong steel cable as mobile observation posts, for hanging radio antennas, and as air barriers against enemy aircraft.

Currently, balloons are used in meteorology (see Meteorological technology) for launching automatic weather stations to high altitudes and for sporting purposes. Modern durable gas-tight materials and gas burners, which make it possible to maintain a high air temperature inside the balloon for quite a long time without much hassle, have made it possible to achieve high safety in such sport flights. Athletes in balloons sometimes manage to overcome very significant distances. So, in 1978, a successful hot air balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean was made.