Early flying machines a second, inner ballonet. On 19 September 1784, it completed the first flight of over , between Paris and Beuvry, despite the man-powered propulsive devices proving useless. In January the next year Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel from Dover to the Bois de Felmores in a Charlière. But a similar attempt the other way ended in tragedy. In an attempt to provide both endurance and controllability, de Rozier developed a balloon with both hot air and hydrogen gas bags, a design which was soon named after him as the "Rozière." His idea was to use
Airmail priority of service. Specific instances of a letter being delivered by air long predate the introduction of Airmail as a regularly scheduled service available to the general public. Although homing pigeons had long been used to send messages (an activity known as pigeon mail), the first mail to be carried by an air vehicle was on January 7, 1785, on a hot air balloon flight from Dover to France near Calais. It was flown by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries. The letter was written by an American Loyalist William Franklin to his son William Temple Franklin who was serving in