Balloonatic brings the hot air balloon to Minecraft: an aircraft that needs no engine to fly, invented by brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier in 1783.
This project was created for ModJam 2026, following the Echoes of the Past theme. I hope you enjoy taking to the skies with these hot air balloons. If you liked my work, please consider voting for me. Your support would mean a lot to me!
Flying a hot air balloon is not a magic trick. It works on Archimedes' principle: an object floats in a fluid if it weighs less than the volume of fluid it displaces. Heat the air inside the balloon, make it lighter than the air around it, and up you go.
Place the hot air balloon down and right-click its seat to sit in it. Above the seat sits the burner, built using a tripwire-style interaction: right-click it to light it and get the principle working. This heats the air inside the balloon, and that's what lets you climb. (Download the resource pack for the burner sound.)
To move horizontally, since Minecraft has no wind, we use the closest thing the game has to it: Breezes. Craft the Breeze Directioner with 3 breeze rods and 2 string, replacing the fishing rod's behavior. Hold right-click with it and the balloon moves exactly in the direction you're looking.
Sit back, enjoy it, hit F5 and take in the view. Don't expect to go fast, though; hot air balloons were never about top speed.
/function globo:test spawns a hot air balloon on the spot (same effect as using the Magenta Airballoon item)/function globo:delete kills all the balloons./function globo:dar_magenta_airballoon gives you the Magenta Airballoon item/function globo:dar_breeze_directioner gives you the Breeze Directioner item/function globo:debug prints debug info about the balloonI made this for a "historical facts" themed event, and hot air balloons turned out to be a great fit: their history is one long chain of "well, actually, it was someone else first." Unknown lighter-than-air lanterns show up in China on the 3rd century, used for military signaling long before anyone thought of getting on one. Centuries later, in the 1700s, several different people in Europe start claiming pieces of the idea for themselves, until the Montgolfier brothers finally get a manned flight off the ground in 1783, only for other inventors to immediately start racing each other with their own balloon designs. It's basically one long history of people building on, borrowing from, and discusing over each other's work, which felt like a fun bit of "history" to bring into a Minecraft data pack. I've always liked hot air balloons anyway. This are also shown on museums and have larger exhibitions that often bring big crowds.
The data pack is still a work in progress. Things I want to add or fix:
Please bear with me, this is my first data pack, so if you have any suggestions or think something is broke, please tell me!!
