Montgolfier brothers Montgolfier brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) were paper manufacturers from Annonay, in Ardèche, France best known as inventors of the Montgolfière-style hot air balloon, globe aérostatique. They launched the first piloted ascent, carrying Étienne. Joseph Michel also invented the self-acting hydraulic ram (1796), Jacques Étienne founded the first paper-making vocational school and the brothers invented a process to manufacture transparent paper. The Montgolfier brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne were born into a family of paper manufacturers founded in 1534 in Annonay, in Ardèche, France. Their parents
The Fantastic Flying Journey purchase at Amazon.com One day, a hot air balloon attached to a huge straw house, lands in the garden of the Dollybutts. The fat old man who owns it is Great-Uncle Lancelot. He tells Mrs Dollybutt and her three children that he is going to find his brother, Perceval, who is lost in the jungles of Africa, looking for gorillas. Perceval, a scientist, invented a magic dust which enables people to communicate with animals. Lancelot takes the three children, Emma, Ivan and Conrad with him in the hot air balloon, which he has called Belladonna, to track Uncle Perceval. On