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[[image: graphic of Pan American Clipper in flight]]

Clipper Flights Then
and Now
The big thrill in flying used to be the danger - now it's the comfort.
ANNE LYON HAIGHT
[[news clipping]]
Two years after the first living creatures of the earth were carried into the air, an English woman ventured skyward in a Lunardi balloon. In 1783 the brothers Montgolfier had released their balloon invention before the king and his nobles and sent up a sheep, a rooster and a duck as the unwilling first passengers in the first ascent. Why these particular farmyard animals were so honored is hard to tell, but their safe return to earth so inspired a gallant Frenchman, de Rozier, with confidence that he tried it too. When he descended he assured his friends that the experience has been very pleasant and that he could think f no inconveniences in aerial travel. Consequently Mrs. Sage, the English lady, determined to go up. Five people were booked for the voyage but the balloon refused to rise. When Mrs. Sage,

who weighed over two hundred pounds, refused to withdraw, three men were finally forced to disembark leaving her to go aloft alone with a Mr. Biggin, who intended to make important scientific experiments. It was rumored by malicious gossips that she fainted, but she wrote afterward to a female friend, "I never was more mistress of my reason...and I find myself more happy and infinitely better pleased with my excursion that I ever was at any former event in my life." In kneeling down to fasten a lacing of the galley she knelt upon the barometer and broke it. Mr. Biggin was extremely annoyed at thus having his experiments interfered with, but eventually lunched merrily with her on ham and chicken and a bottle of Florence wine. Afterward they tossed the empty bottle gaily overboard into a London street.
[/news clipping]]

With the fringe of long Island below her, today's Clipper soars over the Sound.