13 JULY 1907, Page 1
On Monday the military steerable balloon `La Patrie ' made
a very succcessful flight over Paris, travelling, according to the Daily Mail, at a speed of thirty-one miles an hour with the wind and at eighteen miles an hour against it. A French steerable balloon has been in continual use on the Franco- German frontier for nearly two years without any serious mishap and with very satisfactory results. But it is now stated that the French Government are about to build a fleet of twenty of these airships ; and certainly when a dirigeable can manoeuvre over Paris with as much precision as ' La Patrie' displayed on Monday, it is time for every one in the streets below to realise that it is a perfectly practical instrument of warfare.
