Page 3 - Demo

When John Wise and his balloon Jupiter completed the United States%u2019 first official Air Mail flight in 1859, it was, at best, a less-than-stellar achievement. While he took off from Lafayette, Indiana as planned%u2014amid great fanfare%u2014he never reached his stated goal of New York City. Instead, he drifted a mere 25 miles in the wrong direction, and came down near Crawfordsville. Despite failing to live up to his own hoopla, his flight made the record books. So, who was John Wise? He was essentially an eccentric showman born in Lancaster, PA. During his lifetime, a few individuals called him a fraud, although many more referred to him as a scientist. In truth, he was probably a combination of both. As a boy, he developed an early interest in balloons and spent hours making them out of paper or ox bladders. While his first brief profession involved building pianos, he soon turned to his real love%u2014ballooning%u2014full-time. Blessed with a curious mind, Wise once dropped a bottle out of a balloon from a considerable altitude and carefully watched as it fell. His observation led him to a previously unnoticed scientific principle%u2014that an object would spiral around its natural axis as it fell. In addition, he discovered there were 100-mile-perhour prevailing winds about three-miles above the earth%u2019s surface%u2014later known as the jet stream. He speculated that, someday, those upper currents of air could be used to propel a balloon cross-country, even across the ocean. He was so taken with this concept, he petitioned the U.S. Congress to appropriate money to test his theory. However, they refused.While there were other balloonists in Wise%u2019s day, most had a limited vision of ballooning%u2019s potential. Instead, they were content to make a few dollars by giving rides at carnivals and county fairs. Wise, on the other hand, was far more serious, intense, and ambitious. He truly wanted to further mankind%u2019s knowledge of ballooning, the atmosphere, and science in general.Because of this, he took aerial measurements of temperature, barometric pressure, and wind speed, which he recorded in minute detail. He also made records of atmospheric ozone levels, cloud formations, winds, and views of the ground. In total, he made 642 balloon flights in his lifetime%u2014and learned a great deal in the process. No wonder he was often called Professor Wise, even though he never attended college.On July 1, 1859, Wise flew his balloon Atlantican incredible 809 miles from St. Louis to Henderson, New York, where he crash landed during a storm. After learning of this amazing accomplishment, a committee in Lafayette invited Professor John Wise, the Father of American Ballooning.