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A captive sausage balloon is provided with auxiliary air-bags which serve to steady the balloon. In the latest form these give the structure the appearance of a huge elephant
Now Appears the Elephant of the Air
The reason for the queer shapes of captive balloons
��GUY FAWKES' Day in England is a holiday which remotely resem- bles our Fourth of July — a day celebrated to mark the thwarting of a conspiracy. It was the custom to send up on Guy Fawkes' Day balloons which were effigies of the conspirators. There v/ere also balloons, sent up at county fairs, shaped like pigs and cows.
And now comes the French army with its elephant balloon, which is not inven- ted for edification, but an earnest effort to improve the observation balloon.
��It was the Germans who invented the "sausage" captive balloon which is raised by the wind after the fashion of a kite. Some countries adopted the sausage bal- loon and even bought the German manu- factured product. Others, like France and Great Bl-itain, obstinately clung to the obsolete spherical balloon. Then came the Great War and prejudice was blown away. The sausage was imitated at once.
A sausage balloon needs various ap- pendages to catch the air and to steady it.
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