Early Hot Air Balloon Designs
Air Warfare
Against Napoleon
In War and Peace (Vol. 3,
Part 2, Ch. 18) Pierre Bezukhov drives out of Moscow, to the village of
Vorontsovo, to have a look at a novel weapon in development. This is the big hot-air
balloon designed by Franz Leppich, a Dutch peasant, also known by his alias,
Schmidt. Leppich had originally approached Napoleon with his project in 1811,
but was rejected and exiled from France. The gondola of the balloon had a twenty-meter
wooden platform with gun mounts and compartments for bombs. Locomotion for this
primitive blimp was to be provided by forty rowers with giant paddles, who
would row the balloon through the air (?).
Tsar Aleksandr I apparently saw
great promise in the Leppich balloon. A letter in French is quoted, in which he
writes as follows: “As soon as Leppich is ready, put together a cockpit crew of
trustworthy and intelligent men and send a courier to General Kutuzov to inform
him of this. I have told him of the project. I implore you, urge Leppich to be
very careful where he lands for the first time, so as not to miscalculate and
fall into the hands of the enemy. It is imperative that he coordinate his
movements with the general-in-chief.”
Leppich took forever to get his
balloon ready, all the time asking for more money from state
coffers. In November of 1812, he declared his project complete and ready for
testing, but the test failed, and the balloon never got off the ground. After
making this brief appearance in the annals of history, Franz Leppich was never
heard from again.
No comments:
Post a Comment