Unit 14
The First Men to Fly
Men always wanted to y For hundreds of
years they watched birds nying and wished that
they could ny too Birds ny very Uly They
beat the air with
through the air. Then they spread their wings
Men know how to make kites hundreds of years ago. Kites could stay
and noat on the air. The air keeps them up
in the air for many hours. If birds and kites can stay up in the day
At first they made wings like birds. Then they jumped off high
buildings and tried to fity Many men did this but they all failed to my
They crashed to the ground. Some were killed
and some were badly hurt. After many times
they stopped trying to fly with wings. Then two
brothers tried another way.
Can you guess
which way? They tried balloons. "Hot air is
lighter than cold air, they said. That is why hot
air goes upwards. If we fill a balloon with hot
They built a balloon. It was made of thin cloth and paper. They lit
metres. Then the air inside the balloon became
down and gently rested on the ground.
A few months later the brothers sent up another balloon. This time
three animals: a sheep. a duck and a hen. The balloon travelled through
the air to a place two and a half kilometres away. Then it came down
safely to earth.
Now it was time for man to fly! In October
1783 another of the brothers balloons went up
not rise very far. It went only to twenty-five
month later two men went up in a balloon full of
crowd of people watched. The balloon rose to
Foneight metres es. The cane blew back to
earth. Men had travelled through the air for the
irst time!
Other men filled balloons with a gas called hydrogen. You will learn
adout this gas wnen you go into secondary school. Hydrogen is much
lighter than air. Balloons filled with hydrogen were able to travel long
distances. But the men in the baskets underneath could not steer them
They went where the wind took them.
Later, balloons were made in the shape of a cigar. These were called
airships. You can see one in the picture above. They had engines to
drive them along, and they could be steered a little. But they were still
blown about by the wind. The hydrogen gas was dangerous, too. It
caught fire very easily. There were many accidents and many people
died. At last they stopped making airships.
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