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    Early French Aviation, 1905–1930
    Early French Aviation, 1905–1930
    Early French Aviation, 1905–1930
    Ebook195 pages3 hours

    Early French Aviation, 1905–1930

    By Graham M. Simons

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    About this ebook

    The author of Boeing 707 Group: A History delivers “a stunning study in early French aviation design with a plethora of aircraft” (IPMS/USA).
     
    France has been called the cradle of aviation by many—a fact that cannot be disputed, although some have tried. By the end of the 19th century, she led the world in lighter-than-air flight. Any concern about heavier-than-air flight was dismissed as inevitable, and France would achieve it in due course.
     
    France was also the first nation to stage air exhibitions. Unlike their counterparts in Britain, Germany and America, French designers were thoroughly entrepreneurial and tried a wide variety of adventurous styles from pusher to canard and monoplane to multiplane. In 1909 the first Air Show was held at the Grand Palais in what was to become an enduring tradition. Every year, the aircraft exhibitions were a massive success.
     
    It is not surprising that all this derring-do, all these technological achievements and all this innovation drew reporters and photographers like moths to a flame. The men, the machines, the places and the events all were recorded, reported, reproduced and then were filed away. Hundreds of images appeared in print, but thousands were printed up only as contact prints from large-format glass negatives and then disappeared into albums to be forgotten about. In the mid-1990s the author came across one such treasure-trove; a number of dust-covered albums containing around five hundred images of aircraft, airships and expositions—it is doubtful if most have appeared in print before, so this will probably be the first time the events of these French pioneers have ever been showcased.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMay 30, 2019
    ISBN9781526758750
    Early French Aviation, 1905–1930
    Author

    Graham M. Simons

    Graham M. Simons is a highly regarded Aviation historian with extensive contacts within the field. He is the author of Mosquito: The Original Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (2011), B-17 The Fifteen Ton Flying Fortress (2011), and Valkyrie: The North American XB-70 (also 2011), all published by Pen and Sword Books. He lives near Peterborough.

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      Book preview

      Early French Aviation, 1905–1930 - Graham M. Simons

      INTRODUCTION

      France has been called the cradle of aviation by many - a fact that cannot be disputed, although some have tried. By the end of the 19th century, she led the world in lighter-than-air flight.Any concern about heavier-than-air flight was dismissed as inevitable, and France would achieve it in due course. It was thus a shock to national pride when Lilienthal began gliding in Germany and the Wright Brothers power-flew in America. But France lost no time in catching up, and by the time Blériot bravely enquired ‘Which way’s England?’ the country was ready to redress any perceived shortfall. Besides leading European aviation, France was the nation that named all the parts of an aeroplane with words many of which we still use everywhere today. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (b.15 December 1832, d. 27 December 1923) is remembered today for a Parisian landmark, but he was also a pioneer aerodynamicist and opened the world’s first aerodynamic laboratory and wind-tunnel long before the First World War.

      France was also the first nation to stage air exhibitions. Unlike their counterparts in England, Germany and America, French designers were thoroughly entrepreneurial and tried a wide variety of adventurous styles from pusher to canard and monoplane to multiplane. However, when it came to the military use of aircraft, France was no better than the British. Despite a grand series of Concours Militaire, top brass endlessly arguing as to whatever use could flying machines be put other than observation! Sadly, everybody would learn only too soon!

      The history of French aviation began at the dawn of the 20th century. The French had been involved in human flight since 1783 when François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes flew over Paris in the first human flight in a hot air balloon.That same year, the scientist Jacques Alexandre Charles flew with Ainé Robert in the first hydrogen balloon flight. On 7 January 1785 Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, on board a hydrogen balloon. He was accompanied by John Jeffries, an American citizen, who was the first passenger to travel via air from the United Kingdom to France.

      The military usefulness of balloons quickly became apparent to the French. Late in 1870, when the Prussians besieged Paris, balloons allowed the military to stay in touch with authorities trying to organise resistance in the French provinces. Although the Paris airlift was not able to change the course of the military operations in the 1870-1871 war between France and Prussia, it had a considerable impact on world opinion about aerostats.

      In 1784, just one year after the first flights of man-operated balloons, the French inventor G. Meusnier proposed a design for a streamlined propelled and steerable balloon. The design was a forerunner of dirigibles.The word is defined as ‘An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from large gas bags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air’.

      The first flight of a dirigible was accomplished by another French pioneer, Baptiste Jules Henri Jacques Giffard (b. 8 February 1825, d.14 April 1882), in September 1852 in an airship powered by a three-horsepower steam-engine.Then, on 9 August 1884, two French officers and engineers, Charles Renard (b.1847, d. 1905) and Arthur Constantin Krebs, (b.16 November 1850, d. 22 March 1935) made a five-mile trip aboard the dirigible, La France, powered by an electric motor. The airship completed the circuit in twenty minutes at an average speed of 10.74 miles per hour or 17.28 kilometres per hour.

      The aviation development in France during the early 1900s was spurred on by the Wright Brothers' historic flight in 1903, and by Wilbur Wright's displays in France in 1908. But preceding the aviation pioneers of the 20th century, there was another French pioneer, Clément Ader. Born in 1841, Ader was an inventive engineer. He filed many patents in various fields, including land vehicles and telephone sets. But his main hobby was the observation of birds and bats. Ader built kites and small-scale gliders and measured, using dynamometres, the forces needed to keep them flying. He was the first engineer to know the value of lift and thrust needed for flying. In 1890, he made a short take-off aboard Eole, an airship powered by a steam engine. He managed to fly a distance of fifty metres at the height of a few decimetres.

      Ader's airships were very advanced for their time, but suffered from significant handicaps, including a complex airframe with bat-like wings; a difficult aero-engine integration, owing to the use of a steam engine; and an ineffective control system without any roll command.

      Nevertheless, Ader must be recognised as the visionary prophet of aviation and its military applications in France. He gave the family name of 'avions' to his aircraft, and the name has been adopted by the French aeronautical community for designing propelled aeroplanes.

      When internal combustion engines became available, Alberto Santos-Dumont (b. 20 July 1873, d. 23 July 1932) an inventive Brazilian living in Paris, understood their potential for powering dirigibles. He built light and straightforward airships and, in 1901, won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize for the first flight from Saint-Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back.The flight took less than 30 minutes.

      Then the transition from lighter-than-air balloons to aircraft took place. Colonel Charles Renard and his assistant, Captain Ferdinand Ferber, set up the first facility in the world for testing aircraft models as well as engines and propellers in1904 at Chalais-Meudon.

      Ferdinand Ferber designed and flew a motorised aircraft on 27 May 1905. It was the first flight in Europe of a correctly stabilised and controlled aircraft. In October 1906, Santos-Dumont made the first official heavier-than-air powered flight in Europe. From that time on, aviation developed rapidly in France. Among the pioneers were the Voisin brothers, Henri Farman, Louis Blériot, and Robert Esnault.

      In 1909 the first Air Show was held at the Grand Palais. The ‘Exposition Internationale de Locomotion Aérienne’ ushered in what was to become an enduring tradition. Every year, the aircraft exhibitions were a massive success.The presence of so many hot-air balloons, aeroplanes, and airships earned the Nave the nickname of ‘birdcage’.The interior design by André Granet, who since his youth had been fascinated by flying, was such a success that the Automobile-Club subsequently commissioned Granet to do the same for the car shows.

      Louis Baudry de Saunier, the journalist and writer who specialised in writing about the automobile, was a collaborator of the weekly magazine L'Illustration. He wrote of the first Exposition: ‘Airborne mechanical locomotion, with its mysterious problems and future revolutions, could not fail to arouse the enthusiasm of the crowd. Never have so many thronged to the Grand Palais; police officers had to form a cordon to restrain the sea of visitors around these pieces of wood and canvas with which Wright had played at being a bird’.

      This was not an isolated triumph.The great feats of civil aviation, including transatlantic crossings, records of speed and altitude, and night flights provided the substance of dreams, before becoming a means of transport for all.

      Located in the heart of Paris on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the Grand Palais was constructed for the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and dedicated it was proclaimed ‘by the Republic to the glory of French art’. Today the Grand Palais is listed as a historical monument. Its architecture, mixing classicism and modernity, its exceptional dimensions of 70,000 square metres and its remarkable volumes (the biggest Nave of Europe with 13,500 square metres of surface area, crowned with a glass roof of 17,500 square metres) make it an outstanding cultural and heritage site.

      Aida de Acosta Root Breckinridge was an American socialite and the first woman to fly a powered aircraft solo. In 1903, while in Paris with her mother, she caught her first glimpse of dirigibles. She then took three flight lessons, before taking to the sky by herself. On 27

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