The kite balloon itself has been greatly improved since it was first constructed by the Germans. One of its greatest disadvantages lay in the great drag upon the cable, which when the wind was very high caused such an excessive strain that it was dangerous to use the balloon. The German "drachen" was badly "streamlined," that is to say, its shape offered great resistance to the wind. This resistance was increased by the rush of air into the open mouth of the steering ballonet. An attempt to improve the design of the kite balloon was made by an American firm, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. They constructed a balloon which in general outline resembled the German "drachen," but which had not the steering ballonet or rudder at the stern. In its place they substituted large flat fins at the stern, and these, while they offered less resistance and thus reduced the strain or tug of the balloon upon its cable, did not hold the balloon absolutely steady in the air, as the steering ballonet had done. In order to give great steadiness the Goodyear people designed a tail like that of a kite, consisting of a number of very small inverted parachutes. These as they caught the breeze produced a resistance which steadied the balloon after the manner of the air rudder. The Goodyear kite balloon was not an unqualified success, and it remained for Captain Cacquot of the French army to produce the most satisfactory design. His was an almost perfect streamline model. Long and sausage-shaped like the German "drachen," it has, in place of the steering ballonet, three small ballonets at the stern which are in reality inflated fins. They are filled with air which is fed to them by a mouth or opening underneath the main envelope. These inflated fins, while acting as a rudder to hold the balloon steady in the air, do not offer the resistance that was caused by either the flat fins of the Goodyear model or the open-mouthed steering ballonet of the old type. Thus the French streamline balloon came to be the accepted model of the Allied nations, and proved itself an efficient arm of the service during the war. Ballooning in itself will probably never be the sport that it once was, for the coming of the swift motor-driven dirigible and the still swifter airplane has made the old wind-driven vessel a hopelessly obsolete contrivance. It is therefore all the more interesting to know that the captive balloon, developed to highest form of efficiency, gave good service in the war against Germany and made itself a reliable and valuable servant of our armies, accomplishing its mission in a particular field in which neither the airship nor the airplane was able to compete with it successfully. PART II CHAPTER I DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIRIGIBLE