scholar
Banned
Hot air balloons were used in pre-medieval China, in the Later Han period.However, there is no logical reason that pre-modern societies could not have discovered the principle of hot-air balloons or kites/gliders earlier than OTL and made some limited use of these discoveries. But there is simply no way gliders or balloons could be much more than novelties without a means of powering them. You need to describe and justify this technological leap before asking what Aerial Arabs or Airborne Alexanders might do with aircraft.