Lucien Bossoutrot

Lucien Bossoutrot

Lucien Jean-Baptiste Bossoutrot (born May 16, 1890 in Tulle , † September 1, 1958 in Viry-Châtillon ) was a French aviation pioneer and politician . In the period between April 1, 1919 and March 26, 1932, he set a total of 36 world records in manned powered flight (for distance, flight duration, altitude and speed). In addition, there was an endurance world record in gliding in 1923 .

Career start

Bossoutrot was already fascinated by flying as a young man. It is said that he made his first solo flight in 1911 without having received a single flying lesson. In the First World War he was a military pilot. He received his pilot's license in 1914 and became a flight instructor. He equipped his aircraft with instruments that enabled him to fly even when visibility was poor, and thus developed the principle of “Pilotage Sans Visibilité”, or instrument flight .

Civil aviation pioneer

After the war, Bossoutrot became a test pilot at Avions Henri y Maurice Farman . There he was significantly involved in the development of the twin-engine Farman F.60 "Goliath" biplane , with which he carried out the first international scheduled passenger flight and set a number of records.

First scheduled passenger flight

Farman F.60 "F-GEAB", 1920

On February 8, 1919, he was already chief test pilot at Farman and made the first international scheduled passenger flight in the history of aviation with the first “Goliath” prototype F-GEAB. The machine took off at 11:50 a.m. from Toussus-le-Noble south of Paris with 11 passengers - all in military uniforms, as Great Britain did not allow civil flights to fly over its territory - and landed after about 330 km and 2.5 hours of flight time ( 115 km / h average) on Kenley Field in Croydon south of London . On February 9th, it flew back in 2 hours and 10 minutes, with an average speed of 125 km / h. The flight altitude averaged 600 m over land, 1000–1200 m over water. Only days later, on February 12th and 13th, he flew the second “Goliath” prototype from Paris to Brussels and back; Henri Farman and his wife were among the passengers. A few weeks later, on March 22, 1919, he opened the first scheduled (if not yet daily) passenger service of the "Lignes Farman" from Paris to Brussels with a converted Caudron C.23 bomber; the flight time was 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Paris-Casablanca-Dakar 1919

After that, the Farman brothers wanted to prove that long-haul flights were also possible and therefore planned a Paris- Casablanca - Dakar flight . For this purpose the first “Goliath” was prepared, which finally weighed 4.7 tons with the entire payload (8 men crew, food, water, fuel, hand weapons, etc.). On the night of August 11, 1919, Bossoutrot and his copilot Lucien Coupet took off from Toussus-le-Noble soon after midnight and flew 2050 km non-stop to Casablanca in 18 hours and 23 minutes. This flight received a lot of coverage in the press and a lot of attention from the French public, which was to be exceeded by far during the second stage. The start of the onward flight from Casablanca to Dakar took place on the morning of August 16; the arrival in Dakar was expected towards evening. The flight was to run along the coast via Mogador , Agadir , Tiznit , Port-Etienne and Saint-Louis , and on the way radio communication with French ships positioned there was to be maintained - the first time that radio was tested on a long-haul flight . At first everything went smoothly. Port-Etienne was passed, and the machine reported by radio as agreed. Then the connection was broken. It wasn't until the evening of August 23 that the world heard from the eight men again. After one of the two propellers broke , Bossoutrot had to make an emergency landing for the “Goliath” on the beach about 200 km north of Saint-Louis. There the plane, made of wood and textiles, was gradually destroyed by the waves during high tide. The crew was only discovered there on August 21 by a passing Mauritanian and his servant. Thereupon the Emir of Trarza appeared with a camel caravan the following day and brought the eight to the French resident in Mederda . They arrived there on August 24th and then traveled by boat on Senegal via Dagana to Saint-Louis and from there by train to Dakar.

World records

This adventure made Bossoutrot famous. For twenty years "Bobosse", as he was called in aviation circles, then played a role as a test and transport pilot who participated in the development of around 125 types of aircraft, from 45-kg gliders to 25-ton flying boats . During this time he set a total of 36 internationally recognized engine flight world records for flight duration, distance, speed and altitude. One of the most important was the one for non-stop flight distance on a circuit that he set up together with Maurice Rossi on March 26, 1932: the two flew a total of 10,601 km on a circuit in La Sénia near Oran ( Algeria ) in the 600-hp Blériot 110 . A year earlier they had already broken the previous world record when they covered 8822 km with the same machine at the same point. On the 1931 flight they had also set a world record for flight time; From February 26th to March 1st they were 75:23:07 hours non-stop in the air.

Gliding

He was also involved in the development of gliding in France in the 1920s. At the First Gliding Congress [Prémier Congrès Experimental d'Aviation sans Moteur (Puy de Combegrasse)] on August 19, 1922 at Puy de Combegrasse (1120 m; 45 ° 40 '12 "  N , 002 ° 57' 00"  E ) southwest of Clermont -Ferrand won the competitions for the longest flight time (5 minutes and 18 seconds) and the greatest gain in altitude with a Farman 17 "Moustique" from which the engine, propeller, tank, etc. had been removed. A flight time of 5 minutes was hardly remarkable compared to the 2-hour flights achieved in Germany in the same year, but on January 24, 1923, Bossoutrot set the world record for motorless flights of 3 hours and 31 minutes on a Farman 17 « Moustique ».

24 hours of Le Mans 1925

On 20./21. June 1925 Bossoutrot took part with Marcel Gendron , the founder and owner of the car company Gendron et Compagnie , with a "GM GC2" in class 1.5 in the 24-hour race of Le Mans ; However, the two retired after 36 laps with technical damage.

Post line service to South America

On November 27, 1934, Bossoutrot, meanwhile chief test pilot at Blériot , flew the flying boat Blériot 5190 Santos-Dumont for Air France in 16 hours and 15 minutes from Dakar to Natal . This was the first French commercial mail flight across the South Atlantic. After a second test crossing in December was also successful, he took up the air mail service of Air France over the South Atlantic with the Santos-Dumont on February 4, 1935.

After the bankruptcy of Blériot in 1936, Bossoutrot became a test pilot for flying boats at CAMS ( Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine ).

Politician

MP

Bossoutrot was a member of the Radical Socialist Party , for which he was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies (Chambre des députés) in 1936 in the landslide victory Front populaire . There he became President of the Aviation Commission. During this time he also worked with Pierre Cot , Jean Moulin and Léo Lagrange to promote private aviation in France by creating aero clubs that were federated in the FNSA (Fédération Nationale des Sports Aériens). He himself was the founding president of the FNSA.

In 1937, along with Pierre Cot, Jean Moulin and others, he supported the Spanish Republicans by secretly delivering planes, weapons and ammunition.

On July 10, 1940, he voted with a majority of MPs in Vichy for the transfer of all powers from the Chamber of Deputies and Senate to Marshal Pétain ( Vichy regime ). After that, the Chamber of Deputies did not meet again.

Resistance

When he soon came into opposition to the new regime, he was interned in Évaux-les-Bains ( Département Creuse ). In 1944 he managed to escape and joined the Resistance in south-west France. There he helped to smooth the party political differences, and then organized parachute drops of weapons and material for the Maquisards . This mission helped him to get his rehabilitation through a court of honor after the liberation of France, because he had been denied civil rights because of his vote on July 10, 1940 . Nevertheless, he was unable to regain his parliamentary mandate afterwards .

Awards

Bossoutrot received the following awards for his services:

• Croix de guerre 1914-1918
• Commander of the Legion of Honor

Motorsport statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1925	Gendron et Compagnie	GM GC2 Sport	Marcel Gendron	failure	malfunction

literature

• Richard Michaud: Naissance de l'aviation en Corrèze (1911-1950). AIRAC (Association Interactive pour la Recherche et la mise en valeur des richesses Aéronautiques et spatiales de la Corrèze et des environs). Bleu Ciel Éditions, 49140 Marcé, 2007, ISBN 978-2-9521-2286-3
• Lucien Bossoutrot: La belle aventure du "Goliath": De Paris à Dakar , Paris 1925.

Web links

Commons : Lucien Bossoutrot  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lucien Bossoutrot, on the website of the city of Tulle (French)
• Fédération Aéronautique Internationale: History of Records: Lucien Bossoutrot (Fra) (Engl.)

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ This ban was issued at the beginning of the war in 1914 and was not lifted again until May 1, 1919.
2. ↑ http://ghtn.free.fr/documents/Paris%20Dakar%20aerien%20de%20Toussus%20en%201919%20sur%20le%20Goliath%20.pdf (p. 3)
3. ↑ Scheduled line service between France and England did not begin until August 25, 1919, when the British company Aircraft Transport & Travel set up flights between Le Bourget and Hounslow (soon relocated to Kenley / Croydon).
4. ↑ http://ghtn.free.fr/documents/Paris%20Dakar%20aerien%20de%20Toussus%20en%201919%20sur%20le%20Goliath%20.pdf Geneviève Sandras-Dextreit: Un Paris-Dakar Aérien en 1919, Le "Goliath" (2004)
5. ↑ FAI Record ID # 9292. (No longer available online.) Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, archived from the original on July 21, 2015 ; accessed on January 27, 2015 . 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.  
6. ↑ FAI Record ID # 9514. (No longer available online.) Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, archived from the original on July 21, 2015 ; accessed on January 27, 2015 . 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.  
7. ↑ FAI Record ID # 9513. (No longer available online.) Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, archived from the original on July 20, 2015 ; accessed on January 27, 2015 . 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.  
8. ^ The Soaring and Gliding Experiments, in Flight, August 24, 1922, pp. 479-480
9. ↑ The flight engineer was the later Admiral Chief of Staff Henri Nomy .