Caroline Compton (Letters, 3 August) contests my claim that our skies have not been clear of aircraft for more than 200 years. As she says, aeroplanes were indeed “invented in the early 20th century”. Yet balloons were invented in the 1780s, airships in the 1850s, and the first glider with a person on board flew before 1849. Ms Compton “hazards a guess that most people had never seen any form of aviation until the 20th century”. In fact, balloon displays were common from the early days of aviation, including Lunardi’s flight in front of 200,000 people in London in 1784. Such exhibitions were frequent enough to lead to Punch coining the word “balloonatic” after a riot at a display in Leicester in 1864, attended by 50,000 people.
Michael Carley
Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath
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