Rear window: Ballooning's first amazing away day

Like most great achievements, Steve Fossett's balloon record – he is the first person to fly around the world in a balloon – owes something to those who went before. Few blazed such a trail as an Englishman called Charles Green: inventor, pilot on the trip that saw the first parachute fatality, and setter of records, not all of which were deliberate.

Born in 1785, Green first made his name as the "aviator" of a balloon that ascended from London's Green Park on George IV's Coronation Day in 1821. It was the inaugural manned trip in a balloon inflated with coal gas, a method that Green discovered while trying to find a way to light his house. It was widely available and was 10 times cheaper than hydrogen.

By the mid-1830s Green had made more than 200 ascents, including one in which, bizarrely, he was mounted on a pony. He subsequently invented the trail rope, regarded ever since as essential for ballast and landing. In 1836, he put it, himself and two colleagues to the test with an adventure of rare eccentricity.

The intention was to fly due south from London, and see just how far they could get. Packing provisions for three weeks (including 85lb of meat, and six gallons of sherry, port and brandy and a lime-filled contraption for heating coffee), Green, Monck Mason and Robert Holland, MP, rose from Vauxhall Gardens at 1pm on 7 November. It took more than three hours to reach the coast and, as they crossed the Channel, the last of the daylight went.

For a few hours, being wafted along at 2,000ft, they could pick out large towns by their lights. But, around midnight, as they passed over Liège, the last of these went out, and they were in the dark.

The precaution of obtaining a passport for every European country seemed wise. Eventually, as dawn arrived, they could make out great fields of white. Fearing it was the Russian steppes, they descended to earth. They had been aloft for 18 hours and were in Weilberg, Germany – a trip of 380 miles, now recognised as the first serious record-breaking balloon flight.

Green made 500 flights and broke the altitude record of 27,146ft before dying in 1870 at 85. His legacy flies on.