François Laurent d'Arlandes

François Laurent d'Arlandes, born in Anneyron in the Dauphiné in seventeen forty-two, was a distinguished French marquis, soldier, and a pioneering figure in the realm of hot air ballooning. His journey into the skies began when he met Joseph Montgolfier at the Jesuit college of Tournon, which set the stage for his remarkable contributions to aviation.

On the historic day of twenty-one November seventeen eighty-three, d'Arlandes, alongside Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, achieved a monumental milestone by making the first crewed free balloon flight in a Montgolfier balloon. Their ascent from the garden of the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, witnessed by King Louis XVI and U.S. envoy Benjamin Franklin, marked the first confirmed human flight of any kind. The flight lasted twenty-five minutes, covering approximately five and a half miles and reaching an altitude of three thousand feet.

Prior to this groundbreaking event, the Montgolfier brothers had captivated the public with their balloon demonstrations, including an untethered flight of animals from the Palace of Versailles. Initially, the French King intended for the first manned flight to involve two condemned criminals, but d'Arlandes and de Rozier successfully argued for their participation, elevating the honor of being the first balloonists.

Despite his early successes, d'Arlandes faced challenges later in life. He proposed an ambitious flight to cross the English Channel in seventeen eighty-four, but this plan never materialized. Following the upheaval of the French Revolution, he was dismissed from the army under accusations of cowardice and ultimately passed away in his castle of Saleton near Anneyron, with some sources suggesting he may have taken his own life.