New here. I could not find the Cobwebs staff report. Wanting to reply and support the three staffers.:
The balllooning spiders are actually using the dual-kiting dynamic soaring mechanics described well by Richard Miller.
In 1800s Maxim identified the ballooning spiders as actually flying kites.
Balloon kite of the ballooning spiderlings; this kite is not a mechanical balloon but s collection of spider silk threads that are used for dispersal of spiders.[45] [46] [47] Richard Miller in 1967 in book Without Visible Means of Support [48] described the mechanics of the double kite system where the upper kite lifts and drags in coupling with the lower kite that lifts downwards and drags; the common kite line results in a net kiting system in free-flight. In the 1800s Hiram Stevens Maxim in his chapter on Flying Kites observed the kiting of spiders; biologists used the misleading “ballooning” term which has stuck through time. Bug hunter Darrell Ubick correctly recognized that ballooning spiders actually are kiting as noted by author Pamela S. Turner in Super-powered spiders[49]. In Tales with Tails: Storytelling the Wonders of the Natural World by Kevin Strauss at three places (pages 184, and 185 and 187), shows correct understanding of the kiting of the ballooning spider (as no true balloon is ever made)[50].