Occasions may occur when such ascents will be of value, but the usual method is to send up a captive balloon to a height of somewhere about 1000 ft.
The vulnerability of a captive balloon to the enemy's fire has been tested by many experiments with variable results.
It used commonly to be asserted, and is so often to this day, that a feeling as of sea-sickness is experienced in balloon travel, and the notion has undoubtedly arisen from the circumstances attending an ascent in a captive balloon.
It must be perfectly obvious, however, that a captive balloon in a wind is greatly at a disadvantage, and to counteract this, attempts have been made in the direction of a combination between the balloon and a kite.
In the opinion of the inventor, who is a practiced aeronaut, a wind of over thirty miles an hour renders a captive balloon useless, while a kite under such conditions should be capable of taking its place in the field.
At the battle of Fleurus, in 1794, the triumphant French republican army used a captive balloon, chiefly, perhaps, as a symbol and token of the new era of science and liberty.
In October 1914 Wing Commander Maitland was sent to Belgium in command of a captive balloon detachment, to carry out aerial spotting for the guns of monitors working off the coast between Nieuport and Coxyde.
During the month of October he experimented with a captive balloon of the Montgolfier type, from which he suspended a brazier, so that by a continued supply of heated air the balloon should maintain its buoyancy.
The labours of the pencil and the pen are not easily carried on in the basket of a captive balloon: it swings and twirls in a breeze, and very often produces air sickness.
The enthusiastic supporters of aerial navigation maintained that the dirigible and the aeroplane would supersede the captive balloon completely.
An interesting idea of the difficulty of picking up the range of a captive balloon may be gathered from the fact that some ten minutes are required to complete the operation.
To put a captive balloon out of action one must either riddle the envelope, causing it to leak like a sieve, blow the vessel to pieces, or ignite the highly inflammable gas with which it is inflated.
The above list will hopefully provide you with a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "captive balloon" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this group of words.
