On 13th May 1930, Jean Mermoz, French aviation pioneer, opened the south transatlantic postal line, from Saint-Louis in Senegal to Natal, Brazil, flying in Latécoère 28 floatplane. Jean Mermoz was born on 9th December 1901 […]
On 15th April 1965, the first of two prototypes of SA 330 Puma helicopter, registered F-ZWWN, performed its maiden flight. The rotorcraft was flown by Jean Boulet and Roland Coffignot, with an assistance of onboard […]
For a number of years, Aérospatiale Gazelle was a well-known icon of the French helicopter industry. Designed and developed in the late 1960s, as a successor of Alouette rotorcraft family, the Gazelle was widely used […]
Eurocopter AS532 AL Cougar (c/n 2585, H3-72 of the Slovenian Air Force and Air Defence), exercise Dark Blade 2019, Náměšť nad Oslavou, May 2019. At the very beginning, there was a helicopter designed by Sud […]
On 7th January 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries performed the very first successful balloon flight across the English Channel (La Manche), covering the route from Dover Castle to Guînes (Guisines), Pas-de-Calais. Since the childhood, […]
On 12th November 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont performed a series of public flights, in one of them covering a distance of 200 metres. That was the very first flight officially observed by the FAI and, in […]
5th November 1917 – French record-breaking aviatrix, Jacqueline Auriol, was born. Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne Douet, as was her maiden name, was born on 5th November 1917 in Challans, Vendée in France. She was a daughter […]
On 22nd October 1909, Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman ever to pilot a heavier-than-air, powered aircraft and also the first female pilot that performed a solo flight. Élisa Léontine Deroche, as that was […]
On 24th September 1940, the Vichy France performed its first air raid on Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Approximately sixty bombers of the Vichy French Air […]
On 27th August 1783, French scientist, professor Jacques Charles and engineers Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert, have launched the first ever hydrogen-filled balloon. Although the idea of ballooning was as old as ancient China (approximately […]
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