The spy gondola, spy basket, observation car or sub-cloud car (German: Spähgondel or Spähkorb) is a crewed vessel that an airship hiding in cloud cover could lower several hundred metres[1] to a point below the clouds in order to inconspicuously observe the ground and help navigate the airship. It 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.
- ^ Captain Ernst A. Lehmann's book