Henry de La Vaulx

Henry de La Vaulx

Count Henry François Joseph de La Vaulx (born April 2, 1870 in Bierville near Rouen , † April 18, 1930 in Jersey City ) was a French aeronautical scientist and author of adventure novels .

Life

Henry de La Vaulx was born on April 2, 1870 in Bierville Castle ( ⊙ ) ( Département Seine-Inférieure ) around 16 kilometers northeast of Rouen. He studied law in Paris and, after completing his military service, newer languages. In 1894 he made a research trip to the French rear India and then visited China, Korea, Siberia and North America. On behalf of the French government, from March 1896 to May 1897, he traveled to Patagonia on horseback from the Río Negro to the Strait of Magellan , staying overnight with the local Indian tribes. He gave up the plan of a new trip to Tierra del Fuego when his acquaintance with Maurice Mallet (1861–1926) introduced him to airship travel. In the same year he took a share in the company Société Mallet, Mélandri et de Pitray in Puteaux near Paris, founded in 1896 , whose business field was the construction and operation of a portable balloon stock for public events. The participation made it possible in the following years to expand the company's activities and to become the leading provider of large airships for competitions. La Vaulx made the first ascent with a free balloon on July 18, 1898 with his friend Georges de Castillon de Saint-Victor (1870–1962). In October 1898, together with Ernest Archdeacon , Léon Serpollet , Jules Verne , André Michelin , Albert de Dion , Alberto Santos Dumont and Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe, he founded the Aéro-Club de France (Société d'Encouragement à la Locomotion Aérienne) based in Paris, of which he became the first vice-president. On behalf of the astronomer Jules Janssen , he led the balloon that rose with the astronomer Gawriil Adrianowitsch Tichow (1875–1960) from the Meudon observatory to observe the Leonid swarms of shooting stars on the night of November 14th to 15th, 1898.

La Vaulx took part in several balloon races during the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris and the Paris 1900 World's Fair . In a long distance competition on September 30, 1900, La Vaulx drove in a free balloon from Paris in 21 hours 34 minutes to Brześć Kujawski near Włocławek in the Warsaw Governorate, covering a distance of 1,237 kilometers. This was the first direct balloon flight from France to Russia ( Weichselland ). La Vaulx received the medal in Vermeil and a cash prize of 500 francs. In a third long-distance competition on October 9, 1900, he drove with Georges de Castillon de Saint-Victor as a companion in the 1,620 m³ Centaure free balloon in 35¾ hours from Paris to Korostyshiv , covering a distance of 1,925 kilometers. Because of unauthorized border crossing, La Vaulx was imprisoned by the Russian side for 24 hours. With this trip, La Vaulx set a double record for the longest distance traveled and the longest journey time. For this he received the gold medal with the inscription "France-Russie, 9-10 octobre 1900" and a cash bonus of 1,000 francs.

In the autumn of 1901 and 1902 he made test trips over the Mediterranean with a 3000 m³ free balloon in cooperation with the engineer Henri Hervé. On October 12, 1901, de La Vaulx (with Georges de Castillon de Saint-Victor and Henri Hervé) set off in the "Méditerranéen I" balloon for a trip across the Mediterranean ( La traversée de la Méditerranée en ballon ). Cell abortion anchors ( déviateur à minima ), invented by Hervé and provided with floats and stabilizers, were used , which served to give the balloon floating near the sea surface an arbitrary deviation from the wind direction in order to be able to approach certain coasts or ships. The launch took off at 10:10 p.m. from a balloon hall built on the isthmus des Sablettes near Toulon , near the Lagoubran naval airship park. On October 13, the balloon was still south of Marseille in the Gulf of Lyon. On the morning of October 14th he was still 30 nautical miles northeast of Cap de Creus in Spain. Since bad weather set in, the balloon was taken on board the accompanying French cruiser "Du Chayla" around 4 p.m. and deflated. The trip had taken 41 hours and 5 minutes. The deviation found in practice with Hervés deviation anchors was up to 40 ° from the wind direction. The test drives were continued in autumn 1902. After a long wait for a favorable wind, Count de La Vaulx took off on September 22nd, 1902 at around 4:30 am with Mallet's 3400 m³ hydrogen gas balloon “Méditerranéen No. 2 ”from a hangar on the coast of Palavas near Montpellier and was accompanied by the torpedo boat“ L'Epée ”. On September 23 at 3:45 p.m. the balloon landed at Capite near Cette after 35 ¼ hours . The balloon had moved 74 kilometers from the coast with the help of the torpedo boat and was driven towards land by a strong southeast wind. The driving speed over water was significantly reduced by the deployed slab drift anchor ( déviateur à maxima ). La Vaulx later denied having had the intention to reach Africa by sea and named as the purpose of the journeys “the testing of various devices by which long continuous journeys over the surface of the sea should be achieved using this itself and which also make it possible to use the train to give the balloon a direction deviating from the wind line. "

On September 26, 1903 at 7 pm, La Vaulx took off from the Ballonpark ( Parc aérostatique ) in Saint-Cloud near Paris with Captain Jules Stanislas Voyer (1862 – n. 1928) and Count Hadelin d'Oultremont (1877–1943) with the 1600 m³ Hydrogen-containing balloon "Djinn", sailed across the North Sea and landed at 11:40 am the next day at the Carlan Hill farm northeast of Hull . The journey covered 585 kilometers in 17 hours 40 minutes.

On November 16, 1903, La Vaulx made its 100th balloon flight. Accompanied by the sports writer François Peyrey (1873-1934) and Georges Besançon (1866-1934), founder and publisher of the French aviation magazine L'Aérophile , he rose from the Parc Aérostatique in Saint-Cloud with the “Centaure 2” balloon. A continuous journey was intended. The balloon initially took the desired eastward direction, but came at a higher altitude in a southeasterly directed current, so that the journey already ended in the Rhone Valley .

On February 3, 1904, La Vaulx made a high-speed trip with the 1000 m³ balloon "L'Orient". It rose at 11:30 a.m. in Paris in a very strong, gusty wind. The trip was mainly carried out above an extensive cloud cover at a gradually reached altitude of 2700 meters. At 14:40 the landing took place in the slipstream of the edge of the forest near Rhode-Saint-Genèse near Brussels. A distance of around 270 kilometers was covered in 3 hours and 10 minutes, which corresponds to an average of around 85 km / h. The express train Paris – Brussels took about two hours longer for the route.

On August 30, 1905, Count de la Vaulx, together with Joseph Jaubert, director of the meteorological observatory in Paris, carried out an ascent in Africa not far from the Constantine meteorological station to observe the total solar eclipse. This solar eclipse was also observed at the same time through balloon ascents in Paris, Bordeaux and Bourges. La Vaulx was awarded the Legion of Honor by the President of the Republic of France for his expedition to Africa.

La Vaulx built an airplane with engineer Tatin . The first attempt at flight in Saint-Cyr-l'École ended in a total write-off.

La Vaulx became vice-president of the new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) founded on October 14, 1905, and its president from 1925 until his death.

With Maurice Mallet, he founded the Société française de ballons dirigeables et d'aviation company in 1908 for the construction of airships , which later became the Zodiac . In 1911 their first airship, the Dutch Duindigt with a capacity of 900 cubic meters, was launched as the smallest military airship at the time.

With Arnould Galopin , La Vaulx wrote the novels Le Tour du monde de deux gosses, le chemin des nuages (1908), Le Tour du monde en aéroplane, tragiques aventures d'un gamin de Paris (1910) and Le Tour du monde de deux gosses (1911). In 1925 he published Cent mille lieues dans les airs (at Arthème Fayard).

Henry de La Vaulx lived in a small private castle in Rozoy-Bellevalle near Condé-en-Brie .

In 1930 La Vaulx made a flight tour for the FAI. In Jersey City , the aircraft crashed against a high-voltage line , all occupants were killed. According to his wishes, he was buried in the Rozoy-Bellevalle cemetery. The Latécoère 28 , which set a world record for seaplanes in 1930 , was named after Vaulx. The FAI awards the Henry de la Vaulx Medal .

Honors

• Commander of the Legion of Honor
• Commander of the Orden de Isabel la Católica
• Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy
• Commander of the Vasa Order
• Commander of the Nishan el Iftikhar
• Officer of the Belgian Order of the Crown
• Knight of the Order of Charles III.
• Knight of the Belgian Order of the Leopold
• Large gold medal from the Académie des Sciences
• Grande médaille d'or de l'Aéro-club de France

Web links

Commons : Henry de La Vaulx  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jacques de La Vaulx: Croire et oser: la vie ardente et passionnée du comte Henri de La Vaulx, pionnier de l'aéronautique (1870–1930) . J. de La Vaulx, Versailles 1995.
2. ↑ Comte Henry de La Vaulx: Voyage en Patagonie (with 40 illustrations after photographs by the author, a map outside the text and a foreword by José-Maria de Heredia ) . Hachette, Paris 1901.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} La Vaulx, Comte Henry de . In: Gustav Braunbeck (Ed.): Braunbeck's Sport-Lexikon Luftschiffahrt . Braunbeck-Gutenberg AG, Berlin 1910, DNB  946430829 , lexical part. Aviation, S. 274 f .
4. ↑ 120 years of entrepreneurial journey. Zodiac Aerospace, 2016, accessed December 9, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Tikhov, Gavriil Adrianovich (1875-1960). In: Encyclopedia of Science. The Worlds of David Darling, accessed December 8, 2016 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b} 1900 . In: Gustav Braunbeck (Ed.): Braunbeck's Sport-Lexikon Luftschiffahrt . Braunbeck-Gutenberg AG, Berlin 1910, DNB  946430829 , History of Aviation , p. 38 .
7. ↑ EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE INTERNATIONAL DE 1900 À PARIS: CONCOURS INTERNATIONAUX D'EXERCICES PHYSIQUES ET DE SPORTS: RAPPORTS: SECTION X. AÉROSTATION. (PDF) MINISTÈRE DU COMMERCE, DE L'INDUSTRIE DES POSTES ET DES TÉLÉGRAPHES, 1901, pp. 209–212 , accessed on December 7, 2016 (French). 
8. ↑ Carl Bamler: The freedom of the air . In: Illustrated Aeronautical Communications. German magazine for aviation. Organ of the German Airship Association and the Vienna Aviation Technical Association. Half-monthly booklets for all interests in aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. Issue 20. United publishing houses Gustav Braunbeck & Gutenberg-Druckerei Aktiengesellschaft., Berlin October 7, 1908, DNB  012728004 , p. 619 ( available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]): “Not even like the Russians, who in 1900 still imprisoned Count de la Vaulx for 24 hours because he had committed the crime, one day in Korostichew, 1925 km from Paris to land. ” Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE INTERNATIONAL DE 1900 À PARIS: CONCOURS INTERNATIONAUX D'EXERCICES PHYSIQUES ET DE SPORTS: RAPPORTS: SECTION X. AÉROSTATION. (PDF) MINISTÈRE DU COMMERCE, DE L'INDUSTRIE DES POSTES ET DES TÉLÉGRAPHES, 1901, pp. 262–268 , accessed on December 7, 2016 (French). 
10. ↑ 1901 . In: Gustav Braunbeck (Ed.): Braunbeck's Sport-Lexikon Luftschiffahrt . Braunbeck-Gutenberg AG, Berlin 1910, DNB  946430829 , History of Aviation , p. 40 .
11. ^ Hermann Moedebeck : Count de la Vaulx's Mediterranean voyage . In: Illustrirte Aëronautische Mittheilungen. German magazine for aviation. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aëronautical industry and companies. No. 1 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1902, DNB  012728004 , Kleine Mittheilungen , p. 24 f .
12. ↑ G. Espitallier: New tests with the Méditerranéen . In: Illustrirte Aëronautische Mittheilungen. German magazine for aviation. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aëronautical industry and companies. No. 4 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1902, DNB  012728004 , Kleine Mittheilungen , p. 169 .
13. ↑ Departure and landing: of "Méditerranéen No. 2" . In: Illustrirte Aëronautische Mittheilungen. German magazine for aviation. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aëronautical industry and companies. No. 4 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1902, DNB  012728004 , Kleine Mittheilungen , p. 169 f .
14. ^ Karl Neureuther: About the Mediterraneen of Count de la Vaulx. In: Illustrated Aëronautische Mitteilungen. Journal of the German Airship Association. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. No. 8 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1903, DNB  012728004 , p. 264–267 ( available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]). Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original dated August 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ^ Karl Neureuther: The journey of Count Henry de la Vaulx over the canal. In: Illustrated Aëronautische Mitteilungen. Journal of the German Airship Association. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. No. 8 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1903, DNB  012728004 , p. 355 f . ( Available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]). Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original dated August 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ^ Karl Neureuther: The 100th balloon flight of Count de la Vaulx. In: Illustrated Aëronautische Mitteilungen. Journal of the German Airship Association. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. No. 2 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1904, DNB  012728004 , Kleinere Mitteilungen, p. 64 ( available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]). Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ Karl Neureuther: A noteworthy high-speed trip . In: Illustrated Aëronautische Mitteilungen. Journal of the German Airship Association. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. No. 5 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1904, DNB  012728004 , p. 167 ( available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]). Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
18. ^ Aéro-Club de France. In: Illustrated Aëronautische Mitteilungen. Journal of the German Airship Association. Specialized magazine for all interests of aviation technology with its auxiliary sciences, for aeronautical industry and companies. No. 8 . Commission publishing house by Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg i. E. 1906, DNB  012728004 , Aeronautical Clubs and Events., P. 289 ( available online in the Digital Aviation Library [PDF]). Available online in the Digital Aviation Library ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
19. ^ FAI Presidents. (No longer available online.) In: FAI Portal. FAI, archived from the original on December 21, 2016 ; accessed on December 15, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
20. ↑ Air Jornal: May 11, 1911 dans le ciel: 1er vol du «Duindigt» (accessed on December 5, 2016).
21. ↑ Le Comte de La Vaulx . In: l'Aérophile . No. 9-10 , 1930, pp. 131 .