Hot air: The controversial history of the military balloon
From the Napoleonic wars, through to the American Civil War and the Boer War, to the 1914-1918 Great War, the founding use of balloons for aerial battlefield reconnaissance was extensive.
China's errant high-altitude balloon is shot down by US fighter jet.
The hoop-la surrounding the high-altitude Chinese balloons that drifted over North and South America reminds us that – steeped in controversy since their beginnings – they were the least likely but earliest military aircraft.
They were first proposed by Joseph Montgolfier before he and his
