Balloon (aeronautics) balloon filled with hydrogen would be able to rise in the air. The first recorded manned flight was made in a hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers on 21 November 1783. The flight started in Paris and reached a height of 500 feet or so. The pilots, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes, covered about 5½ miles in 25 minutes. On 1 December 1783, Professor Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers made the first gas balloon flight, also from Paris. Their hydrogen-filled balloon flew to almost 2,000 feet (600 m), stayed aloft for over 2 hours
Hot air ballooning forecasts. The pilot will also send up a helium pilot balloon, known as a "met-balloon" in the UK and "pibal" in the USA, prior to launch to get information about what the wind is actually doing. Another way to determine actual wind directions is to watch other hot air balloons, which are the equivalent of a large "met-balloon". The direction of flight depends on the wind, but the altitude of the balloon can be controlled by changing the temperature of the air inside the envelope. The pilot may open one or more burner blast valves to increase the temperature inside