First Untethered Hot Air Balloon Flight
- When
- 1783
- Where
- Garden of the Château de la Muette, Bois de Boulogne; French royal court; Paris and Versailles
- Episodes
- 3
On 21 November 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, made the first crewed free balloon flight—the first confirmed human flight of any kind—lifting off in a Montgolfier hot air balloon from the Château de la Muette garden in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, before King Louis XVI.
Episodes
- Royal permission for the first pilots
Louis XVI first assigned two condemned criminals to the flight, but was persuaded to let de Rozier and d'Arlandes become the first pilots.
- Tethered tests and balloon precedents
Tethered tests preceded the free flight; the June 1783 public demonstration and the September Versailles animal flight prepared the way.
- First untethered hot air balloon flight
De Rozier and d'Arlandes flew a Montgolfier hot air balloon from the Château de la Muette garden on 21 November 1783, before the king.
Background and detail
Background. In June 1783 Pilâtre de Rozier witnessed the first public demonstration of a balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, which was followed on 19 September by an untethered flight carrying a sheep, a cockerel and a duck from the front courtyard of the Palace of Versailles. These demonstrations set the stage for crewed flight.
Who Would Fly. King Louis XVI initially decided the first manned flight would carry two condemned criminals. De Rozier enlisted the Duchess de Polignac to argue that the honour of becoming first balloonists belonged to someone of higher status, and the Marquis d'Arlandes agreed to accompany him. The king was persuaded to permit d'Arlandes and de Rozier to become the first pilots.
The Flight. After several tethered tests to gain experience controlling the balloon, de Rozier and d'Arlandes made their first untethered flight in a Montgolfier hot air balloon on 21 November 1783, taking off from the garden of the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, in the presence of the king. The two accounts differ slightly on the departure time, giving 1:54 p.m. and around 2 p.m.
People involved
- Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier · pilot and pioneer of aviation; French chemistry and physics teacher
- François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes · pilot; French marquis, soldier and pioneer of hot air ballooning
- Louis XVI · King of France, present at the flight; initially proposed condemned criminals as passengers
- Duchess de Polignac · court supporter of de Rozier's claim to make the first flight
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.