Historic Balloon Hangar at PIVO

The lost balloon affair is a historical farce. The warehouse has been a protected monument of "high historical and industrial-archaeological value" since 2001. However, many historians and politicians strongly relativize this situation. According to Onroerend Erfgoed, the 1922 warehouse was used, among other things, to store zeppelins, a historical fable that has long since been debunked but still appears on the website. At the time, the monuments service was misled by an architectural study carried out by a student who took liberties with history. Until 1940, a large meteorological and observation balloon, commonly known as "the cigar," was kept in the hangar. After the war, it became a crane warehouse. The iron structure has been practically crumbling for decades, and pieces regularly fall off. There is also an identical but more recent balloon hangar in Diest (Schaffen), which has always been maintained and is used for training parachutists.