Ed Yost own interests turned toward reviving the lost practice of manned hot-air ballooning. This technology had first been invented in France by in the late 18th century by pioneers led by the Montgolfier brothers, but under the Montgolfier system, the balloon's air was heated by a ground fire prior to the balloon being released. The inherent danger of this type of balloon flight led to the system being abandoned when hydrogen and later helium became available. One of Yost's key engineering insights was that a hot-air balloon could be made to carry its own fuel. The invention of relatively light burners
Hot air ballooning the Bull often rides in a hot air balloon. On "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World", disaster strikes and their hot air balloon crashes in the uncharted Amazon jungle. In the 1984 miniseries "V: The Final Battle", humans defeat the alien visitors by dropping red dust from hot air balloons. In "The Simpsons", episode 328, "Co-Dependent's Day" from season 15, originally aired on Sunday, March 21, 2004, at the end, when Marge asks Homer who is watching the kids, the scene cuts to Bart and Lisa in the basket of a hot air balloon. In "The Simpsons", episode 336,