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Balloon Flying Menu > Inflation, Launch, And Landing > Inflation > Historical
Background
When the modern hot air balloon was being
invented, one of the first pieces of inflation equipment was
a relatively huge squirrel cage centrifugal blower—the
type seen on roofs of old buildings. Because of its design,
with the engine off to the side, and out of the airstream, this
type of blower could be used to pump warm air into the envelope.
A wand-type propane device, similar to present-day weed burners,
heated the air. The flame was held in front of the blower inlet,
thus air was heated prior to entry in the envelope.
Because the blower was noisy, bulky, expensive,
and potentially dangerous, many early balloonists chose to do
flap inflation. Two or three people would stand at the mouth
of the balloon, with their backs to the basket. Each person
would grasp the upper lip of the mouth with widely spaced hands.
As the flappers moved the upper lip up and down in unison, the
envelope would partially fill with ambient air.
A couple of other early inflators are worthy
of comment. Some pilots, trying to avoid smelly, flammable gasoline,
used electric fans. Automobile or truck radiator fans were tried,
but their small size made inflation very slow. Another attempt
was to attach radiator fan blades directly to an automotive
starter motor, plugged into the chase vehicle battery. The motor
drew so much power from the battery that the battery would die.
The solution was to keep the vehicle engine running to keep
the battery charged. The fan, however, was still essentially
gasoline powered, polluted the air, and required the chase vehicle
to be parked too close to the balloon.
Today most hot air balloons are inflated with
commercially built or homemade gasolinepowered, propeller-bladed,
inflation fans. Another type of fan you might see in use today
is a small, propane-powered, 3-horse power (HP), aluminumbladed,
ducted, axial fan.
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