THE AEROSTATION OF THE GREAT WAR

On 21 November 1783, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis of Arlandes boarded a hot-air balloon, a hot-air balloon, and on the following 1 December, with the help of a gas balloon (hydrogen), a charlière. However, it would take a century to make the flight dirigible, the first aerostat capable of a closed circuit (9 August 1884), La France, being developed by military engineers. Nevertheless, the maturity of this mode of aerial locomotion will still take a long time to achieve. Thirty years later, at the dawn of what was to become the Great War, aviation was born. The tethered balloon remains an ideal observatory of the battlefield. And the dirigible balloon, despite its fragility in the face of bad weather, the danger of its flammable gas and the colossal infrastructure it requires, is useful to the military. If it is slow, it can carry out long missions...