Louis Paulhan

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Louis Paulhan 1909
Paulhan in 1910 on his record flight in Los Angeles
Monument in Pézenas

Louis Paulhan (* 1883 in Pézenas , † February 10, 1963 in Saint-Jean-de-Luz ) was a French pilot .

Live and act

Paulhan was an airship designer who showed an interest in model building . He won a model building competition where first prize would have been to build the best full-size model. However, since the model was very elaborately manufactured, it was offered an airframe instead. Paulhan procured a suitable internal combustion engine for the cell, learned to fly and obtained the pilot license No. 10 in France. Paulhan drew attention to himself at aviation shows, such as the one in Douai in 1909, where he won several competitions. He completed his first record flight in which he covered 134 km in 2 h 43 min 24 s. In 1910 he set further records:

  • At the Dominguez International Air Meet in Los Angeles from January 10 to 20, 1910, he became the great flying star. His flight maneuvers thrilled the audience. He set a new altitude record with a Farman III with 1269 m and a long-term flight record with 1 hour and 49 minutes.
  • On April 19, 1910, he set a new cross-country flight record. With a Farman III he flew 186 km from Orleans to near Trois.
  • On April 27th and 28th of the same year, he won the Daily Mail 300km air race between London and Manchester . It took him around 12 hours to cover 296.1 km (24 hours were allowed) with an effective flight time of 4 hours 12 minutes and thus received the prize money of 10,000 pounds sterling .

In 1911 he and the aviation theorist Victor Tatin developed the monoplane Aero-Torpille with pusher propeller .

In the First World War he took part as a fighter pilot. After the end of the fighting he worked as a designer of seaplanes .

In 1927, together with aviation experts Robert Deté, Enea Bossi and Pierre Prier, he founded Société Continentale Parker with the aim of introducing modern surface technology into the French aviation industry. Thanks to good relationships, Parker Rust-Proof obtained a license for phosphating in Detroit , which was then followed by a distribution agreement with the Udylite Corporation for electroplating . The company achieved dominant market positions which are continued in the successor organizations Chemetall and Coventya .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LONDON TO MANCHESTER . £ 10,000 MORE FOR PRIZES. In: Proprietors of FLIGHT (Ed.): Flight . tape 71 . Flight, London 1910, p. 349-350 .
  2. ^ Company archive Société Continentale Parker / Chemetall SAS, Clichy, France.
personal data
SURNAME Paulhan, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French pilot
DATE OF BIRTH 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Pézenas
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1963
Place of death Saint-Jean-de-Luz