Is The Aeronauts a true story? Real life of James Glaisher, and if the pilot Amelia Rennes existed The Aeronauts will have your heart in your throat, but is it a true story?

New movie The Aeronauts tells the story of a daredevil balloon pilot who teams up with a pioneering meteorologist to discover more about the weather, and fly higher than anyone.

It stars Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne, and has proved a hit with both critics and audiences since its release earlier in the month.

It’s not a film for vertigo suffers, with much of it taking place under taxing conditions thousands of feet above the Earth’s surface.

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But is it a true story? Did those characters really exist, and did such instances of daring-do really take place in the 1860s?

Here’s all you need to know:

Is The Aeronauts a true story?

By and large, the Aeronauts is a true story.

The events of the film are based on flights detailed in the 2013 book ‘Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air’ by author and academic Richard Holmes.

“A top priority for us on The Aeronauts is authenticity,” said producer Todd Lieberman while the film was in production.

“With that in mind, we intend to do as much balloon filming in the sky as the weather will allow.”

Many of scenes were filmed after the crew “launched Felicity and Eddie 2,000 feet in the air, performing their scripted scene, while a helicopter captured it all.”

Redmayne’s character James Glaisher was a real person, a founding member of the Meteorological Society and the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain.

Born the son of a London watchmaker in Rotherhithe, between 1862 and 1866 and usually with the aid of co-pilot Henry Coxwell, Glaisher made numerous ascents to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at its highest levels.

His ascent on 5 September 1862 broke the world record for altitude, but Glaisher passed out before a reading could be taken.

Estimates suggest that he rose to as much as 35,000 feet above sea-level, around the same height the commercial airliners cruise at.

Did Amelia Rennes exist?

While Rennes plays an integral part in the film, she is in fact a fictional character, something of a composite character based on a number of real life figures.

The two most prominent in her creation were Sophie Blanchard, the first woman to work as a professional balloonist and Jones’ inspiration for the role, and Margaret Graham, the first British woman to make a solo balloon flight.

Keith Moore, Head of Library at the Royal Society, told The Telegraph: “It’s a great shame that Henry isn’t portrayed because he performed very well and saved the life of a leading scientist.”

Was the dramatic world record flight real?

One of the film’s most dramatic moments sees Glaisher and Amelia Rennes breaking the world flight altitude record in their hot air balloon, reaching a height of nearly 12,000 metres.

The flight in question is based on real events that took place on 5 September 1862, but Rennes replaces Henry Coxwell.

The dramatic events of that flight did indeed take place: when the pair were over three miles in height, they “dropped like a stone”.

Glaisher began to develop “balloon sickness” – likely a condition similar to the bends – and when recalling the flight said he believed he would experience “nothing more as death would come unless speedily descended.”

Unable to control the craft, Coxwell had to climb out of the basket to release a crucial valve with his teeth so the pair could descend.

The film’s removal of Coxwell in favour of a fictional female character has drawn the ire of many historians, who fear the movie’s revising of history risks airbrushing real events for future generations.

Moore said it was wrong to replace Coxwell with a fictitious female, as “there were so many deserving female scientists of that period who haven’t had films made about them.

“Why not do that instead?”

Others have praised the inclusion of a strong female character, fictional or otherwise, saying the aspirational character could inspire young girls, and proves that women can be “just as excited about taking a hero’s journey.”