First Person to flyLighter than Air (Aerostats) 

First person to flyLighter than air (aerostats) 

• First animals to fly in a balloon: a sheep called Montauciel, along with a duck and a rooster were sent on a balloon flight by the Montgolfier brothers on September 19, 1783

• First manned flight Étienne Montgolfier went aloft in a tethered Montgolfier hot air balloon on October 15, 1783

• First manned free flight in an untethered balloon Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes flew in a Montgolfier hot air balloon from the Château de la Muette to the Butte-aux-Cailles, Paris, on November 21, 1783.

• First manned gas balloon flight: Professor Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert flew from Paris to Nesles-la-Vallée in a hydrogen-filled balloon on December 1, 1783.

• First women to fly: The Marchioness and Countess of Montalembert, the Countess of Podenas and Miss de Lagarde ascended in a tethered balloon over Paris, on May 20, 1784

• First woman in free flight in an untethered balloon: Élisabeth Thible flew over Lyon singing arias on June 4, 1784, in order to entertain Gustav III of Sweden.

• First flight in a steerable balloon (or airship): On July 15, 1784, the Robert brothers (Les Frères Robert) flew for 45 minutes from Saint-Cloud to Meudon with M. Collin-Hullin and Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Chartres, in an elongated balloon designed by Jacques Charles, following Jean Baptiste Meusnier’s suggestions (1783–85), but the oars did not work.

• First flight across the English Channel: was made by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries in a balloon on January 7, 1785.

• First aviation disaster: Occurred in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland, when a hot air balloon caused a fire that burned down about 100 houses on May 10, 1785.

• First known fatalities in an air crash: Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain died when their Rozière balloon deflated and crashed near Wimereux in Pas-de-Calais, on June 15, 1785.

• First jump from a balloon with a parachute: Jean-Pierre Blanchard used a parachute in 1793 to escape his hot air balloon when it ruptured.

• First successful jump from a balloon with a parachute: Andre Jacques Garnerin in Paris in 1797.

• First balloon ascent on horseback. Pierre Testu-Brissy ascended from Belleville Park in Paris.

• First woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute: Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse jumped from an altitude of 900 m (3,000 ft) on October 12, 1799.

• First woman to pilot her own balloon: Sophie Blanchard flew solo from the garden of the Cloister of the Jacobins in Toulouse on August 18, 1805.

• First woman to be killed in an aviation accident: Sophie Blanchard was killed when her hydrogen balloon ignited on July 6, 1819.