Episode 2 of 3
Tethered tests and balloon precedents
- When
- from June 1783 until the 21 November 1783 flight
- Where
- Paris and Versailles
Tethered tests preceded the free flight; the June 1783 public demonstration and the September Versailles animal flight prepared the way.
Before the untethered flight, de Rozier and d'Arlandes conducted several tethered tests to gain experience of controlling the balloon. The first public demonstration of a balloon by the Montgolfier brothers took place in June 1783, witnessed by de Rozier, and was followed on 19 September by an untethered flight of a sheep, a cockerel and a duck from the front courtyard of the Palace of Versailles.
Sources
- François Laurent d'Arlandes Wikipedia, revision of 2025-10-16
- Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-04
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.