Balloons Galore!
By ! Tom Carroll
13 Dec 2008
The 2008 North Carolina Balloon Festival was held in Statesville on October 24 and 25. Over 50 balloons participated in the 3-day hot air balloon ascension.
The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers.
A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is the gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule) which carries the passengers and (usually) a source of heat. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope.
