Sending Carrier Pigeons by Balloon
Item
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Title (Dublin Core)
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Sending Carrier Pigeons by Balloon
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Sending Carrier Pigeons by Balloon
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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THROUGH the efforts of a pigeon fancier, facilities have been devised for increasing the usefulness of feathered messengers in war. Light-weight wire cages, each just large enough for one pigeon, are among the things that compose the equipment. The cages carry grain for the birds, and pencils and paper for marooned dispatch writers. They are attached to. small balloons that are used when wind conditions are favorable, and also to parachutes designed to be dropped from low-flying aeroplanes. On the other hand, several of them may be strapped to a trained dog and conveyed by him to the desired point. All of which is for the purpose of establishing communication with detachments that become cut off from the main body of troops and, while resisting capture, have no means of immediate escape without outside assistance. Small balloons, timed to descend in a prescribed number of minutes, are intended for use when all conditions are favorable and the location of a unit to be reached is fairly well known. Under other circumstances, as, for instance, when the position of a detached body of men must be established by scouting, aeroplanes frequently are best suited for the work. It is then that the parachutes are employed. The wire cages are arranged so that the birds may be fed without being removed from them, and, furthermore, messages may be inserted in the pellets the pigeons carry without the latter being handled, or even touched. A mobile loft in which the birds normally are kept, has provisions for %5 carriers and is the base to which the birds return.
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Contributor (Dublin Core)
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Edwin Levick (photos)
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1918-10
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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642-643
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public Domain
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Iacopo Tonon
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Alberto Bordignon (Supervisor)
Popular Mechanics, v. 30, n. 4, 1918
