My First Float “Part 3″

After your first balloon flight there is a initiation ceremony.  It goes back to the very first flight and goes like this.

You kneel before your pilot (thank goodness it wasn't ISIS), a bottle of champagne awaits. Your pilot will say you have a choice to either drink or wear your champagne,  really what a choice, pop the cork and let's get to some celebrating.  But it doesn't work that way.  While you're kneeling you hear the story of the first manned flight and how the ceremony came to be.

The first human flight was in 1783 in France.  Two brothers who owned a paper manufacturing company noticed that when they burned paper pieces would raise with the smoke.  At first they thought it was the smoke that caused the paper to fly rather than the heat.

So the brothers, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier started experimenting with different paper balloons and eventually sent a sheep a duck and a rooster on the first live flight.  They sent them because they didn't know if there was oxygen where the balloons went.  The sheep and the rooster landed just fine.  The duck ended up with a broken beak from the goat stepping on it.  Either way, the three were cooked in celebration anyway.  King Louis the XVI, Marie Antoinette and a crowd of over 130,000 were there to watch.

The next step was to use people,but they didn't want to use just anyone, they were going to use condemned prisoners.  If they died no big deal, if they lived they would get their freedom.

The big day came, the balloon was ready, 60ft of hand stitched silk, inflated ready to fly.  Well Jean-Fraancois Pilatre de Rozier (Pilatre would eventually be shortened to Pilot) stepped up and said "wait" in a real thick French accent of course, if these men are successful they will be known for the first manned flight and will be heros. So he took the place of one of the prisoners.  At which point Marquis d'Arlandes a French militar officer stepped up making sure that France was properly represented.  The two prisoners went back to prison.

The flight lasted about 30 minutes and traveled almost 5 miles.  Now there are different accounts of what happened when it landed, but I like this version best.  They would land in a field of peasants who thinking the balloon was a fire breathing dragon, promptly shredded it with their hoes and shovels.

This would bring about a change in how landings happened.  From that point on before a balloon would land they would lower a bottle of the Kings Champagne to the ground.  The people on the ground seeing the kings crest, would know it was safe and after the balloon landed the cork would be popped and everyone celebrated

So there we were, kneeling, waiting, hearing the story when it came time to drink. The champagne is in front of us in a small plastic cup and we are informed that we can't use our hands to pick up the cup.  No problem, there's a reason I got kicked out of Bible college. After the initial drink, the entire crew gets together to finish off the bottle (open container laws and all).

To the pilot of the Obsession, Ingrid Martell,  her husband and the crew, THANKS for introducing me to ballooning.  My first flight was more fun than I could have imagined, I see how you got hooked  (It was hard not coming up with some cheesy line involving obsession).

Kevin Mee