Southwark
SOUTHWARK: Balloon launching site
Location: St George’s Fields. Further research indicates that this site was either on or near the site now occupied by the Imperial War Museum.
Period of operation: 1784? (or 1785?)
NOTES: This initial information came from a QI programme shown on BBC1 (12.02.2010) but unfortunately, by the time I realised the significance and found a pen and paper the item had finished.
Apparently the balloon lifted off without the aeronaut (or pilot) on board, carrying a gentleman and a lady. It seems that at the time these two were reported as being the first members of the ‘mile high’ club, the incident causing quite a scandal. I’d have thought they would have been much too concerned about their safety - but it takes all sorts! Apparently the balloon came down about twelve miles away in NW London.
In November 2010 I then thought I could piece this story together. Assuming I’d managed to pin down the site? It revolves around Vincenzo Lunardi of MOORFIELD fame, but I’ll let John Harding in his book Flying’s Strangest Moments take up the story: “This success spurred Lunardi on to greater feats. He decorated his next balloon with the British Union Jack, and in homage to the beauty of a society belle, Mrs Letitia Ann Sage, asked for the honour of taking her into the ‘blue Paradisian skies’. Thrilled, she accepted.”
Now comes the interesting bit. “For the flight from London, (My note: How I hate such inexactitude regarding location!), on the 29 June 1785, he announced that he would also carry a certain Colonel Hastings and George Biggin (a distinguished Etonian, amateur chemist and inventor of a coffee percolator). The good lady, however, weighed in at some fourteen stone and, fearing his balloon might be unequal to the task, Lunardi along with Colonel Hastings gallantly stepped down.” Today of course this will seem the most extraordinary course of action, to release the balloon without its pilot!
But, we must remember that this flight was barely a year after the Montgolfier balloon had been released to fly over Paris, the first balloon to fly with two human passengers. Their first ‘passengers’ being a sheep, duck and rooster when it was first demonstrated, at Versailles, on the 19th September 1783. But, we should remember that the French physicist Jacques Charles had launched a hydrogen filled balloon, albeit non-passenger carrying, which landed in Gonesse, only to be attacked and destroyed by peasents with scythes and pitchforks fearing it to be an alien monster. And, how ironic that in all of France, just over two hundred years later, the first crash of a Concorde took place nearby.
A SHORT DISSERTATION
Having mentioned it, the reasons behind that Concorde crash will rage around for a long time. For example, if it was a British Airways crew flying it, there is
quite a good possibility everybody would have survived. It might not be ‘official’ practise but many senior British Airways captains, (to say the least), know that having a jet engine on fire during take-off is no reason to shut it down, it can keep on working effectively for quite a long time, most probably with little risk. The temperatures of fuel on fire are much lower than the temperatures the engine is designed to cope with in normal operation.
This needs to be explained. Today, any hint of fire will be dealt with immediately, because even twin engined types can perform everything expected on just one engine. Concorde was designed a long time ago, it was a very old aeroplane from a past era.
In the case of Concorde with far, far more risk shutting an engine down at this very critical stage during take-off was not an option. So why did the flight crew decide to take this suicidal course of action? Even with Air France ‘flight planners’ having the aircraft overloaded, (or so it is said), this is probably not an issue. An exploding engine is another matter but the flight engineer should pick that up from his instruments within seconds. And their fate would be sealed.
The real tragedy being that an engine was not on fire in this case. It was leaking fuel from a punctured fuel tank that caught on fire in the slipstream behind the engine, (with reheat applied), posing almost no threat to the aircraft in terms of being able to fly a circuit and land back safely.
BACK TO LUNARDI
Getting back to Lunardi and Mr Harding’s account. “With British flags waving and throngs cheering, the balloon rose and was soon floating over St James’s Park and Piccadilly, whereupon Mrs Sage and Mr Biggin settled down to a lunch of chicken, ham and Italian wine, nonchalantly tossing the remnants over the side.” Wot! Without being chaparoned the two occupants getting down to ‘doctors and nurses’ or ‘ladies and gentlemen’ soon after getting airborne seemed a distinct possibility to the fevered Victorian imagination.
“An hour later, they landed in a field near Harrow, where a furious farmer, ‘abusive to a savage degree’, (I’d love to see a transcript of that encounter), accused the couple of damaging his crops. They were rescued by a group of boys from Harrow school.” I do so hope all these tales of these earliest Lunardi balloon flights are true.
Typically there is some debate. In Women with Wings Mary Cadogan reckons it was an ascent in August 1836, (from where?), conducted by the Duke of Brunswick and Mrs Graham which, “prompted some mean-spirited speculation about whether or not immorality was possible in the basket of a balloon.” She also mentions that previously Vincent Lunardi had made a long flight from London to Ware, (in HERTFORDSHIRE).
Also she mentions that in 1784 Jean-Pierre Blanchard was competing with the Italian, Vincent Lunardi, for plaudits regarding balloon ascents. She states that in May 1785 he persuaded a fourteen year old French girl, Madamoiselle Simonet, to go up with him – but, as she quickly became hysterical at a height of about 30ft he descended.
Mary Cadogan claims; “In spite of this ignominious descent, Blanchard’s reluctant passenger made her mark in history as the first member of her sex to float, if only briefly, over England.”
Another claim she makes, which appears quite extraordinary, is that Mrs Graham organised an all-female balloon ascent in the ‘Victoria and Albert’ balloon, around 1937/8. She also claims that on a later ascent Mrs Graham, “…fell from a balloon at a height of 100 feet. Saved from catastrophe only by her billowing dress, which felicitously functioned like a parachute.” My only comment being, having flown in, and briefly flown under training, a balloon equipped with a ‘classic’ wicker-basket, is how the hell did she manage to fall out?
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