Tag: Balloon Flight

On a Transatlantic Flight

As a kid, Werner Doehner had loved to travel. He was born in Germany, but his family moved to Mexico when he was a young man. As a result, the family made several trips back-and-forth between Mexico and their German homeland. And every time they traveled, the young man was excited, as excited as he was the first time he ever flew across the Atlantic. One particular trip especially stuck out in Werner’s mind, although he didn’t talk about it until he was an old man. It would be the last trip the five members of his family would take as a group.

Werner’s dad was a pharmaceutical executive for a large German drug firm in Mexico, and he had accumulated great wealth over the course of his career. That allowed the family to travel in style, and that is also what appealed to young Werner when the family made trips back and forth “home” to Germany. It’s always a great way to travel when you can afford to sleep in comfy beds at the nicest hotels, dine at the swankiest restaurants, and luxuriate in the extra large seats on the flights. And that’s the level of luxury that Werner and the family enjoyed on that last transatlantic flight they took together. But there was more. In an effort to make the trip into a true adventure, the Doehner family had booked first-class train travel that would take them on down to Mexico once they had arrived on the flight from Germany into the New York City area. The kids were especially excited over that part of the trip–Werner, his brother, and his sister.

Years later, Werner would talk about that last trip the family made, but it wasn’t until he was an old man and was prodded to talk about the trip by his son. Up until then, Werner didn’t talk much about that flight. As he grew up, he went to a prestigious university in Mexico, majoring in electrical engineering. On another trip back to Germany, he met and fell in love with a woman named Ellin. The couple got married in her hometown of Essen. The young pair moved back to Mexico City, but they eventually immigrated to Massachusetts where Werner made a career with the New England Electrical System before retiring. He and Ellin were married over 50 years. It was shortly before he died in 2019 that he began to open up to his son about the events of several decades before.

Werner finally told his son all about it after keeping it to himself for all those years. He finally spoke of that horrendous fire, the flames that seemed to come on all of them so suddenly. He recalled that his mother first threw his brother out of a window, then she grabbed 8 year old Werner and threw him out before leaping to the ground herself. In doing so, his mother broke her hip. All three of them suffered severe burns. Sadly, both Werner’s father and his sister didn’t survive the fire. And Werner carried the scars he got in the fire for the rest of his life. But the emotional scars were just as real and were the deeper marks of what had happened to him and his family at the end of that flight.

You see, Werner Doehner was the last survivor of the 1937 burning and crash of the LZ-129 Zeppelin, better known to you as the Hindenburg.

On A Balloon Flight

Balloons are in the news lately in the United States, so a story about their origins might be timely and appropriate. Steve and Joe Montgolfier were a couple of French brothers who had inherited their dad’s paper company. Their firm made bags and wrapping paper as well as paper for stationers and books. With their considerable profits, the brothers began experimenting with, among other things, filling bags with hot air and letting them float up, up, and away. (The brothers also invented transparent paper, by the way.) This was the late 1700s, and such things as floating bags of hot air were unusual to say the least. But it was the period of experimentation and scientific enquiry, and these brothers get credit for creating the first successful hot air balloons made first out of paper and eventually out of fabric.

After starting small, the pair eventually crafted a bag that was over 30 feet wide and over 50 feet tall. This experimental, unmanned bag floated over 1,000 feet up over the French countryside. The success of the experiment pushed the brothers to make a larger, grander bag that could, conceivable, carry living things from one place to another. Now, based on their diaries and on conversations with them at the time, the Montgolfiers had no idea what science was behind the way their hot air bags worked. They surmised that it was the composition of the smoke from their fire that created the lift rather than the heat from the fires making the bags rise. In any case, they get and deserve the credit for being the first in the modern world to create a method for flight over 100 years before the Wright brothers invented their heavier than air craft.

Finally, it was time for a test flight with passengers in the balloon. The news of the Montgolfiers’ experiments had spread, and the brothers were summoned to show the contraption to King Louis of France himself at the royal palace of Versailles. And, this time, the balloon was over 7 stories tall and over 45 feet wide. On September 12, 1783, the royal court was seated outside to watch the event. King Louis “volunteered” three members of his royal estate to be the proverbial guinea pigs and be the first to ride in the Montgolfiers’ balloon. Of course, the trio had no say in the matter–the King, after all, had decreed it. A female–Madame Brebis–and two males–Monsieurs Coq and Canard–took their places inside the basket of the balloon, and soon, they became the first beings to rise above the earth in a lighter than aircraft. This trio soared over 1500 feet above the palace grounds, and they landed safely over 6 miles away. The experiment was a success, and the brothers received the court’s thanks and a handsome reward. As you might expect, experiments such as this soon became lost in the ensuing French Revolution, but the triumph of the Montgolfiers set the stage for the continuing experiments of the 1800s in balloon and dirigible flight.

We do not know how those first three passengers reacted to what they witnessed from the balloon basket that fine September day. No one asked them, and, it wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had.

For, you see, brebis, coq, and canard, are the French words for ewe, rooster, and duck after all.