While most of the country's air consciousness is concentrated on airplanes, and to a lesser degree on rigid dirigibles and still less upon semi-rigids ("blimps"), free-ballooning is still extant in the U. S. The Army and Navy still keep spherical gasbags for observation purposes. Tire companies build balloons to sell rubber and to keep ballooning alive as a sport. Newspapers also enter balloons in races, mostly for publicity but partly for tradition. The trophy for the world's ballooning championship was given by a newspaper man, the late James Gordon Bennett.
National elimination nights...
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