This discovery would open up the world of ballooning. The Montgolfier brothers would send up numerous balloons before a manned flight would take place. The first balloon flights would be powered by hot air, because of this the flights would not last very long and some ended in tragedy. J.A.C. Charles would change this by using hydrogen as a lifting agent. Not much was known about hydrogen back then, this would prove to be a fatal as hydrogen is a very flammable gas. Although hydrogen had more than eight times the lifting capacity as helium, it would only be used for a short time due to this flaw.
As hydrogen was being used in balloons, there were many improvements being made in ballooning. One of the biggest improvements was the invention of the airship. An airship is basically a balloon with control surfaces and a propulsion system. The Germans would expand the airship business offering trips around the world. The Graf zeppelin would be the most famed airship until the creation of a giant, this giant would be known as the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg would be the German flagship for a year as it made trans-Atlantic flights to and from South America. However, this would sadly come to an end on May 6th, 1937. There had been showers earlier in the day as the airship approached its landing ground in Lakehurst, NY. As the airship dropped its lines, a spark was sighted at the tail of the airship. This discharge of electricity would ignite the flammable hydrogen gas and send 35 people to their deaths. From this moment on, the airship business would cease to exist and hydrogen would never be used in airships again.
The next major step in early aviation would be the era of gliders. The first recorded glider design would be that of Sir George Cayley from England. Another prominent glider designer was Otto Lilienthal. Lilienthal, backed by the German government, designed gliders by imitating the form a birds wing took while soaring.
