She crossed the Alps from the sky, the first woman aeronaut

Sophie Blanchard, the amazing adventure of the first professional areonaut.

Who knows what amazement to see a hot air balloon, an astounding marvel of technology, being flown in the city by a professional woman aeronaut.

On April 26, 1812, Frenchwoman Sophie Blanchard, put on a show by soaring in Italy from the Valentino Park in Turin, and the same reception made of crowds and amazement she had in other cities such as Milan, Rome and Naples.

But even more significant remains her challenge to the Alps, an epic feat, she crossed them in 1817 arriving unharmed, despite the high altitude that caused her nosebleeds, but physics applied to flight was only in its infancy and she also experienced on other occasions several fainting spells as the effects of a crossing with low oxygen.

Her husband, inventor and first professional aeronaut, Jean-Pierre, had already been plying the skies since 1784, a year after the Montgolfier brothers’ eperiment, but specializing in the construction of these new craft he used them mainly for spectacular flight demonstrations; during one of these, he died in 1809 as a result of…