Lighter Than Air

Fledgling balloonists in nineteenth century Australia realised that their aerial endeavours added little to their pockets, or to science. Re-inventing themselves as showmen and women, they performed daring acrobatics from trapezes and parachutes, touring towns and cities all over the country.Along the way, they faced primitive and challenging conditions; experienced petty squabbles, farcical incidents; aeronauts blown out to sea, onto rooftops. Many were crippled. Some even died. Lighter Than Air showcases the exciting history of ballooning in Australia, and gives us an insight into these larger-than life pioneers of the skies, and the emergence and expansion of modern ballooning.

Helene Rogers has worked as a freelance journalist, as a communications officer, as a recruitment and media consultant and also in Women's and Children's Health for most of her life. Her love of history and words started at school and her love of ballooning much later. After seeing Chris Dewhirst's film of his first attempt to overfly Mount Everest, and having interviewed him, she was inspired to write Australia's ballooning history.Helene's favourite balloon flight in Victoria was in the Yarra Valley and, in Turkey, it was flying over the Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia at dawn. Helene lives in Melbourne and spent decades researching, writing and editing this book. She has also published a monograph, Brown, Dean and Coppin and Early Ballooning in Australia and was commissioned by Encyclopaedia Britannica to write the first chapter for their book, Hot Air Ballooning on the history of ballooning.

Fledgling balloonists in nineteenth century Australia realised that their aerial endeavours added little to their pockets, or to science. Re-inventing themselves as showmen and women, they performed daring acrobatics from trapezes and parachutes, touring towns and cities all over the country.Along the way, they faced primitive and challenging conditions; experienced petty squabbles, farcical incidents; aeronauts blown out to sea, onto rooftops. Many were crippled. Some even died. Lighter Than Air showcases the exciting history of ballooning in Australia, and gives us an insight into these larger-than life pioneers of the skies, and the emergence and expansion of modern ballooning.

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