balloons
...ght back in 1961 there was an ascent to 114,000 feet and then the balloonist parachuted down. RECREATIONAL There was a gap between when ballooning started in Europe to when it started in America. Finally on "Jan. 9, 1783, in Philadelphia, Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first U.S. balloon flight.” (Grolier 2) Into the 1930s, balloon flights, races, and tethered ascents in anchored balloons were quite popular events. Ballooning's popularity died out during the depression. In the 60s hot-air ballooning was revived as a sport. In America ballooning is more of a recreational sport than any thing else. Due to a mainly recreational class of balloonists Americans have for the most part used hot air balloons because of the major cost and safety problem of hydrogen and there also is larger supply of propane in the US. There still is the great advantage of helium, which, is safety. Hydrogen is highly flammable and potentially explosive, but helium is not, Hydrogen balloons tend to be much more dangerous and expensive. In Europe and the rest of the world hydrogen is used a lot more that hot air just because over there it is cheaper than the propane it take to run hot air. They still go recreationally but a lot of the balloons are for racing RACING There are quite a few races for Balloons, some with little or no prize money and some with big prizes including international ones like "Budweiser’s 1 million dollars for the first around the world ballooning attempt successfully completed.” (www.Budwiser.com) Trans world balloonists try to get up high in to the atmosphere and catch the jet stream and then they would be swiftly carried away around the world. There is a problem with going up to the jet stream, the temperature is very cold up there and balloons potentially could get iced over and come flying down. Many people do it for the thrill of trying to do something no one has done before. The big races take lots of money to run and often times participants will need a sponsor or else they wouldn’t be able to compete. Trans world balloons have two balloons attached to a central enclosed gondola. The balloons are filled with hydrogen. Club races often are small ones and many times they play games. Balloonists still try to catch winds but these are not as high or as fast as the jet stream. When a competitor wants to change direction he or she would have to let the air cool down in the balloon some, so the balloon will descend into a different wind pattern and they will change direction. Fox and the hound are a good example, in the game one balloon would leave earlier in the morning and then the others would chase after it. When the fist...