Hot Air Balloons

Hot Air Balloons
By Leo

Hot air balloons are not used so much for transportation as they are for Hot air balloon about two minutes from landing over Bristol, England. enjoyment. Most of the time pilots don’t even know where they’re going to land. In fact, they have to have part of the crew follow in a car, so they can pick up the passengers and equipment. They can't have their crew wait at a planned location.

Hot air balloons have three main parts:
1. The burner- the burner uses flames to heat the air so the balloon will rise.
2. The envelope- the envelope is the big fabric balloon part that is used to trap the air.
3. The basket- the basket is the part at the bottom of the balloon that holds the passengers and pilot.

The envelope is so big because it needs all that room to keep the hot air. One cubic foot of hot air can lift about 7 grams, so if you want to lift 1000 pounds you need 65,000 cubic feet or if you want to lift 373 kilograms of hot air you need 1,841 cubic meters.

The controls on a hot air balloon are somewhat simple. There are Hot air balloon inflated by a bank of propane torches. three controls on a hot air balloon:
1.      A valve that makes the flame bigger or smaller, making the balloon rise faster or slower.
2.      Most modern hot air balloons have a second valve that uses liquid propane instead of propane gas. The liquid propane creates a weaker flame, but one that is quieter so it won’t scare farm animals.
3.      A cord that opens a parachute valve at the top of the envelope. When it opens it lets out air, slowing the balloon down. If it lets enough air out, the balloon will go down.

So we know how to direct the balloon up and down, but how do we get the balloon to move back and forth? If you want to steer the balloon, you simply direct it up and down, because in different parts of the atmosphere the wind is blowing in different directions and at different speed levels. But pilots still don’t have complete control over which way they are going to go. Normally the wind leaves very little options; that’s why (like I said earlier) pilots don’t normally know where they’re going to land.

If you’re wondering how this all started, it is quite an interesting story. The idea of flying machines has been around for a very long time. Many early scientists and inventors have tried making hot air balloons because they knew about the simple principle that warm air rises in cool air. But nothing took flight until September 19, 1783 when Joseph-Michael and Jaques-Etienne Montgolfier sent a sheep, a chicken, and a duck up in a hot air balloon over France. But instead of using propane gas or liquid propane, they attached a fire pit and burned straw and other flammable objects.

Technology has changed over the years and ballooning has become safer and easier, but one thing that hasn’t changed about hot air ballooning is that people enjoy it!

Citations

Electronic Media

Harris, Tom. “How Hot Air Balloons Work” How Stuff Works. November 18, 2004. <http://travle.howstuffworks.com/hot-air-balloon.htm>.

“How the Balloon Works” eballooning.org. November 18, 2004. <http://eballoning.org/how-it-works.html>.

Images

Animated balloon in upper left corner of page original artwork created by the author of this page.

The photograph of the hot air balloon landing above house from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>. Image has been released into the public domain by its creator, Arpingstone. This applies worldwide.

Permission to use photograph of hot air balloon inflation is granted under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.

Copyrighted clip art image of chicken from "Microsoft Office Online" <http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us&cag=1> (October-March, 2004-2005). Clip art available only to licensed users for non-commercial purposes.