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The first passengers of a hot-air balloon were a sheep, a duck and a rooster, sent up at Versailles in September 1783 before any human had flown.

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On 19 September 1783, the Montgolfier brothers, French paper-makers who had built the first hot-air balloons, launched one at the Palace of Versailles carrying a sheep nicknamed Montauciel ('Climb-to-the-sky'), a duck and a rooster, while King Louis XVI and a large crowd watched. The flight lasted about eight minutes and covered about 3 kilometres, and the animals landed safely. The point was to test whether a living creature could survive the height before a person risked it. Just over two months later, on 21 November 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first free flight by humans, in a balloon not tied to the ground, travelling about 9 kilometres over Paris.

Türkçe oku
Sıcak hava balonunun ilk yolcuları bir koyun, bir ördek ve bir horozdu. Eylül 1783'te, henüz hiçbir insan uçmamışken Versay'da havalandılar.

Kâğıt üreticisi olan ve ilk sıcak hava balonlarını yapan Fransız Montgolfier kardeşler, 19 Eylül 1783'te Versay Sarayı'nda bir balonu havalandırdı. Balonun sepetinde Montauciel (“Göğe tırmanan”) lakaplı bir koyun, bir ördek ve bir horoz vardı; Kral XVI. Louis ve kalabalık bir halk da gösteriyi izliyordu. Uçuş yaklaşık sekiz dakika sürdü, balon 3 kilometre kadar yol aldı ve hayvanlar sağ salim yere indi. Amaç, bir insan bu riski almadan önce canlıların o yüksekliğe dayanıp dayanamayacağını görmekti. İki ayı biraz aşkın bir süre sonra, 21 Kasım 1783'te, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier ile Marquis d'Arlandes yere bağlı olmayan bir balonla Paris üzerinde yaklaşık 9 kilometre uçtu ve serbest uçuş yapan ilk insanlar oldu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Montgolfier brothers
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