HaitiLibre Quiz

Aircraft 2.1 EXPERT

Difficulty Level: N2 Intermediate
This quiz of intermediate difficulty has been designed for cultivated players who are curious to discover the technical challenges, strategic choices and daring innovations that have marked the formidable epic of the lighter and heavier than air. This Quiz offers more subtle questions, ideal for an audience who likes a challenge.
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In 1783, what gas then called “flammable air” was used by the physicist Jacques Charles to take off the very first balloon alternative to the hot air balloon?

100% of players answered correctly.

THE CORRECT ANSWER: Hydrogen

Just a few months after the invention of the hot air balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, the physicist Jacques Charles proposed a completely different and particularly innovative scientific approach. On August 27, 1783, he raised a silk balloon waterproofed with a rubber-based varnish from the Champ-de-Mars in Paris.Instead of using air heated by a fireplace, Jacques Charles filled his envelope with hydrogen, a gas recently discovered and called “flammable air”, known to be much lighter than ambient air. The experiment is a huge scientific success. The unmanned balloon quickly rises to almost a kilometer in altitude before drifting and landing in Gonesse.This major innovation gave rise to “charlières”, gas balloons, which quickly supplanted hot air balloons for long distance flights thanks to their excellent thermal stability.