FLIGHT OF FANCY


Flight of fancy


A Lanarkshire pilot’s plan to recreate the ‘Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon’ and honour the name of Scotland’s fi rst aviator WORDS ARCHIE MACKENZIE IMAGES ROY SUMMERS


capital city. Although time and his country have all but forgotten this pioneer of fl ight, a Scottish pilot is intent on raising the profi le of James Tytler by building a replica of his balloon and fl ying it in his honour. Graeme Houston, who is chief pilot with


T


Scotair Balloons based at Skirling in Lanark- shire, is the face behind The Tytler Project, which intends over the coming months to work with designers and potential spon- sors to recreate the ‘Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon’ and more importantly fl y it! It is well documented that man fi rst took


to the skies in 1783. Many people were under the impression that the pilots were the brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfi er. But this was not actually the case. The Montgolfi ers were the builders of the balloon and the pilots were Jean- François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes. Almost one year later in Edinburgh, the


fi rst man in Britain was getting ready to fl y his own balloon – James Tytler. After a few false starts Tytler fi nally took to the sky, reaching a height of 350ft above Calton Hill, and became Scotland and the UK’s fi rst aviator. Tytler was born in 1745 at the Manse in Fern


near Forfar, the son of George Tytler and his wife Janet Robertson. Educated at Edinburgh University he gained a lifelong interest in exper- imental chemistry, but according to JK Gillon’s ‘James Tytler and the Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon’ he was a jack-of-all-trades – surgeon, writer, publisher, composer and poet. He worked as a surgeon and an apothecary,


wrote numerous books and articles, invented a printing machine, composed songs, poems and even tunes for the highland bagpipe. Sadly none of these enterprises resulted in much fi nancial gain for Tytler and he was twice outlawed as a


he fi rst ever recorded fl ight in the UK was in 1784 when Scot James Tytler fl ew his ‘Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon’ in the


debtor. Some said that he had his head in the clouds, but the successful fl ights of Pilâtre de Rozier and d’Arlandes fi red his enthusiasm and in June 1784 he exhibited his ‘Grand Edin- burgh Fire Balloon’ in the uncompleted dome of Robert Adam’s Register House. The balloon was barrel shaped, 40ft high and 30ft in diam- eter and was powered by heating the air in the balloon with a stove. Although inclement weather prevented a


fl ight early in August, there was a successful lift off on August 27 in Comely Gardens, an open area north east of Holyrood. Seated in a small wicker packing case tied to the base of


WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 95


Above: James Tytler, who made Britain’s fi rst balloon fl ight above Calton Hill. Left: Graeme Houston plans to recreate the feat.


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