page_title: Spy basket
hierarchical_section_title: Spy basket
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial lookout in an observatory car suspended from a Zeppelin airship. Extracted from Scientific American's front cover illustration 23 December 1916.
context_page_description: The spy gondola, spy basket, observation car or sub-cloud car was a byproduct of Peilgondel development. They were used almost exclusively by the Germans in the First World War on their military airships. The spy basket could be lowered from above through the cloud deck several hundred metres in order to inconspicuously observe the ground and help navigate the airship.
context_section_description: The spy gondola, spy basket, observation car or sub-cloud car (German: Spähgondel or Spähkorb) was a byproduct of Peilgondel development (a gondola to weight an airship's radio-locating antenna). They were used almost exclusively by the Germans in the First World War on their military airships. The spy basket could be lowered from above through the cloud deck several hundred metres in order to inconspicuously observe the ground and help navigate the airship.
caption: Observatory car drawing from a December 1916 Scientific American cover
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