Jacques Balsan

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Jacques Balsan

Louis Jacques Balsan (born September 16, 1868 in Châteauroux , † November 4, 1956 in New York City ) was a French aeronautical engineer and aviator .

Life

Jacques Balsan, son of the cloth manufacturer Auguste Balsan , joined the 2nd Hussar Regiment in Châlons-sur-Marne as a volunteer in 1888 . After retiring as a second lieutenant in 1892, he traveled to South America , Australia , the Philippines and China in search of quality wool in the service of the family company in Châteauroux, which had supplied the French army with uniforms since Napoleon .

As a member of the French team at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris , Balsan took part in the international flight competitions as part of the Paris 1900 World Exhibition and came second after Henry de La Vaulx . To do this, he set the French altitude record of 8,558 m with the Le Saint-Louis balloon by Louis Godard II together with Eugène Godard II . In 1905 he bought his first airplane: a glider of the Octave Chanute type. In 1906 he started as vice-president of the Aéro-Club de France in the competition for the Gordon Bennett Cup on board the balloon Ville-de-Châteauroux with Albert Corot as assistant in the Paris Tuileries and finished fifth (of 16) with the landing in England .

In 1909 Balsan bought the monoplane Blériot XI from Louis Blériot and in 1910 acquired flight license No. 22 from the Aéro-club de France at Blériot's flight school in Pau . In the 1910 flight competition in Heliopolis , he came second in the competition for the Baron Empain Prize for the longest flight without a stopover and third in the overall standings with 139.5 km . In 1911 he founded the Association générale aéronautique under the patronage of the Aéro-club de France to promote aviation .

In 1913 and 1914 Balsan volunteered in military operations in Morocco under General Gouraud's leadership . In the First World War he was the VI. Army under General Maunoury and was part of the group of reconnaissance officers who observed the change of direction of the German 1st Army under General von Kluck at the beginning of the First Battle of the Marne . Later he was in conversation for the management of the Escadrille La Fayette . At the end of the war he was a lieutenant colonel in charge of the française aeronautique mission in London .

In 1921 Balsan married the newly divorced Consuelo Vanderbilt in London . The couple now led a glamorous life in France and the USA . Consuelo bought a property in Èze and had Lou Sueil Castle furnished, while Norah Lindsay designed the garden. Here the couple spent the winters and received distinguished guests such as the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn , the Maharaja of Kapurthala , Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill received with his wife. In Paris they lived in a house built by René Sergent next to the Eiffel Tower .

After the beginning of the Second World War , the Balsans fled to New York City via Spain and Portugal . There Balsan joined the Forces françaises libres in February 1942, despite his age . In May 1943 he became a member of General Cochet's Staff F in London . After the dissolution of Force F in December 1943, Balsan was transferred to Mission Air aux États-Unis d'Amérique , of which he was a member until August 1945.

Balsan was buried in Paris.

Honors

Web links

Commons : Jacques Balsan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jacques Balsan (1868–1956) France (accessed December 2, 2016).
  2. ↑ Balsan ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (accessed December 2, 2016). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.genea-bdf.org
  3. ↑ Jacques BALSAN - Brevet n ° 22 (accessed December 2, 2016).
  4. ^ A b Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan: The glitter and the gold . Hodder, London 2011, ISBN 1-4447-3098-3 .
  5. ↑ November 7, 1956 Newport Daily News from Newport, Rhode Island Page 2 (accessed December 2, 2016).
personal data
SURNAME Balsan, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French balloonist and pilot
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Chateauroux
DATE OF DEATH 4th November 1956
Place of death New York City