Port-Aviation
Port-Aviation was an airfield in the commune of Viry-Châtillon in Seine-et-Oise, France. It operated as a popular air racing and aviation exhibition venue and hosted civilian flight schools from its opening in 1909 until the start of in 1914, then as a training center for military pilots during the war. Situated on land prone to flooding, it closed in 1918. In its earliest years it was an internationally important aviation center. Although designed as an aviation event venue rather than as a true airport or aerodrome, Viry-Châtillon claims for it the title of "world's first organized aerodrome."
Although Port-Aviation was located entirely within Viry-Châtillon rather than on the territory of either Juvisy-sur-Orge or Savigny-sur-Orge, the press and post card publishers habitually – to the consternation of the civic leaders of Viry-Châtillon – referred to it as Juvisy Airfield or sometimes as Savigny Airfield because the Juvisy and Savigny-sur-Orge railroad stations served it; in fact, a sign at Juvisy station referred to Port-Aviation as "Juvisy Airfield." As a result, the airfield often is referred to as "Juvisy Airfield" by historians and the general public.
Port-Aviation was the site or origin of many record-breaking or otherwise historic flights and aerobatic feats, and a number of aviation firsts took place there, such as the first air race, the first flight with two passengers, and the first inverted airplane flight, as well as only the second aerobatic loop in history. The first airplane with a tubular fuselage, the first flying boat, and early parachutes were tested at Port-Aviation. Tragic firsts also occurred there: The first death of a pilot in a crash while at the controls of an airplane and the first death of a person on the ground killed by a falling airplane both took place at Port-Aviation.
After Port-Aviation closed, its land became a housing development. The housing district constructed on the site of the former airfield also is called Port-Aviation.
History
Origins, construction, and design
In the early 20th century, when aviation was regarded as a sport for daredevils, aviation pioneers made their early public flights in the Grand Paris region from Issy-les-Moulineaux, Vincennes, and the Château de Bagatelle. Spectators observed them both from grandstands and while swarming around the field in a circus atmosphere. In all cases, aviators had to borrow or rent venues designed or intended for other purposes; at Issy-les-Moulineaux and the Château de Bagatelle, the flights took place at racetracks not designed for aviation, and at Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vincennes flights took place on fields the French Army used for maneuvers and had to be scheduled so as not to interfere with military events.Seeking a better venue to host aviation events in the Grand Paris region, the Société d’Encouragement à l’Aviation was formed on 30 July 1908 to establish the world's first true airfield, designed specifically for the use of aviators, as well as the world's first aviation school and first aviation competition. The Society formed the Compagnie de l'Aviation to operate the airfield and leased cultivated land from two families in the vicinity of the towns of Viry and Châtillon, about south of the center of Paris. Situated on a perfectly flat plain in a low valley and bisected by the Orge, the land was sheltered from the wind by nearby hills along the banks of the Seine.
The Society for the Encouragement of Aviation called upon the French government's chief architect, Guillaume Tronchet, to design and build what became Port-Aviation and organize the facilities necessary for it to function properly as an aerodrome. Tronchet designed Port-Aviation not as a true airport or aerodrome, but rather as a racecourse for airplanes at a time when airplanes generally flew at an altitude of around in competitions and only recently had become reliably capable of making turns. Gabriel Voisin, an architect from Juvisy-sur-Orge, drew up and approved the airfield's race courses. Construction began on 15 October 1908.
Port-Aviation had a elliptical track encompassing a circular grass airfield and stands that could seat 7,000 spectators. When the airfield opened, it contained three marked race courses, of,, and either or, according to different sources. A fourth course of was added in the autumn of 1909. A signals mast — sometimes considered the ancestor of the airport control tower — stood in the center of the airfield. The grounds included an officials' booth at the start line for races, airplane hangars, an airship hangar, 32 repair and construction sheds, an airplane exhibition and sales hall, a central telephone and telegraph office, a post office, a two-story press building, an infirmary, a hotel and reception area for distinguished visitors, a restaurant and buffet, bars, tennis courts, a car park, and the Grand Etang, a body of water in the eastern corner of the property that could accommodate seaplanes. Structures throughout the venue were decorated with depictions of eagles, vultures, and other birds and birds of prey. The Orge, a tributary of the Seine, split into two branches at the airfield, one of which ran along Port-Aviation's northwestern perimeter and the other across the northwestern, northern, and northeastern portions of the airfield itself.
Port-Aviation was served by two nearby railroad stations. Juvisy station, located less than away in Juvisy-sur-Orge, served the general public. Distinguished visitors to Port-Aviation usually arrived at Savigny-sur-Orge station, which lay away in Savigny-sur-Orge.
1908–1909
The first flights took place at Port-Aviation in November 1908 after the Ligue National Aérienne opened a flying school there on 1 November operating two Voisin airplanes; its instructor was Ferdinand Ferber and Igor Sikorsky enrolled at the school for flying lessons. Due to construction delays and unpredictable weather, Port-Aviation's official opening was delayed from 5 December to 10 December 1908, then to 10 January 1909, and then again to 1 April 1909. Meanwhile, tobacco, pharmacy, candy, and shoeshine kiosks, ladies' hairdresser shops, barbershops, shops selling aerial toys and post cards, and bars opened along the road leading into the main entrance of Port-Aviation. On 1 April, Archbishop of Paris Léon-Adolphe Amette blessed the airfield and two airplanes in a ceremony at Port-Aviation, but a hard rain again prevented flying and forced another postponement.Port-Aviation finally opened on 23 May 1909, when 30,000 spectators arrived to see the world's first heavier-than-air air race, the Prix de Lagatinerie. Nine pilots entered the competition, which required entrants to complete ten laps around two pylons positioned apart in the fastest time or, if no one completed ten laps, to travel the greatest distance. Only four pilots — Léon Delagrange, Ferdinand Ferber, Alfred de Pischof, and Henri Rougier — actually showed up for the race. On a very hot day, the crowd — told flying would begin at 2:00 p.m. but entertained only by a two-hour kite competition that began at 2:30 p.m. — dwindled during a 3-hour 45-minute delay due to unfavorable winds. At 4:15 p.m., Delagrange rolled out his Voisin biplane to give spectators something to see, and frustrated members of the crowd poured onto the airfield and surrounded him. He flew a lap of the field at 5:15 p.m. to entertain them. At 5:45 p.m. those who remained finally saw the beginning of the race. Only Rougier and Delagrange managed to take off, and neither of them completed ten laps. However, Delagrange had the last and longest flight, finishing at around 7:20 p.m. after covering slightly more than five laps at an altitude ranging from 5 metres on his first lap to on later laps, and was declared the winner. He had flown in 10 minutes 18 seconds, and the crowd raised him in triumph after he landed. His average speed was calculated as, but this was based on the distance between the two pylons multiplied by the number of laps he flew between them, not the actual distance he flew, which was considerably farther and would have resulted in the calculation of a higher average speed.
Port-Aviation subsequently drew ever-increasing and enthusiastic weekend crowds as it hosted a series of minor flying events, and a festive atmosphere prevailed. Crowds were so large that the railway operator serving the nearby rail stations, the Compagnie d'Orléans, found itself incapable of handling them — a problem which arose on 23 May and continued during the season — leading to passengers waiting for hours for a train and sometimes rioting in the stations and on the trains themselves. On the airfield, Delagrange, Ferber, and Rougier raced again on 30 May 1909, competing to have the fastest lap around the same two-pylon course on which they had competed on 23 May; Delagrange, who made three flights during the day, reached an altitude of on one three-lap flight and in an earlier two-lap flight reached a height of and posted the winning single-lap time of 1 minute 40.6 seconds, while Ferber came in second at 1 minute 41.6 seconds. From 31 May through 3 June 1909, Port-Aviation hosted the Prix Stern, a four-day competition in which pilots attempted to post the best time for one lap around a square course of one kilometre with four pylons set apart; the two fastest laps both took place on the first day, when Delagrange flew at and posted a time of 1 minute 18.6 seconds at an average speed calculated at and Ferber finished a lap in 1 minute 24.0 seconds, flying at an altitude of.
On 12 June 1909, three people flew in an airplane for the first time in history, as Louis Blériot lifted off from Port-Aviation in a monoplane, carrying Alberto Santos-Dumont and Heraclio Fournier as passengers. Charles de Lambert made a flight of 12 minutes 53 seconds in a Wright Model A biplane on 13 June 1909, and Paul Tissandier experimented unsuccessfully with a Wright biplane on 3 July 1909.
At a charitable event for victims of an earthquake in Midi-Pyrénées that drew 10,000 spectators to Port-Aviation on 4 July 1909, Alfred Boulanger ascended to in a hot air balloon and Louis Blériot circled the runway 24 times in 50 minutes 8 seconds to test the fuel endurance of his Blériot XI monoplane, which he used three weeks later to make the first airplane flight across the English Channel. Tissandier had a more successful outing on 14 July 1909 than he had on 3 July, covering two-and-a-half laps of the field, a distance of about, at an altitude of.
On 1 August 1909, the road leading onto the airfield at its main entrance was named Avenue Blériot in honor of Louis Blériot for his flight across the English Channel, and a bust of him was raised at Port-Aviation. During an aerial celebration of Blériot and his achievement that day, Louis Gaudart completed three laps of the track, a distance of, in 7 minutes 14 seconds, making the first lap at an altitude of, the second at, and the third at, thrilling the crowd by flying over the stands.
Tragedy struck at Port-Aviation on 7 September 1909, when Eugène Lefebvre, testing a Wright biplane, climbed to an altitude of before suddenly pitching forward and crashing. Thrown from the plane, he died in the infirmary shortly afterward without ever regaining consciousness, becoming the first pilot in history to die while at the controls of a powered aircraft; whether the crash resulted from human error or a mechanical failure was never determined. Flying continued on the field as the month continued, highlighted by tests on 16 September of a biplane with an Antoinette engine, followed that evening by a flight by Charles de Lambert of two laps of the race course, covering at a height of before landing in front of his hangar. Another crash occurred on 20 September 1909, when a Blériot monoplane struck the stands' balustrade.
Of the many aviation events held at Port-Aviation, the most notable was the Grande Quinzaine de Paris of October 1909, for which the grandstands were expanded and decorated. Organizers originally scheduled the event for, but the large number of entrants prompted them to expand the schedule, with testing and training days from followed by official events from. The Grande Quinzaine drew huge crowds, including a record number of spectators on 10 October, estimated by the weekly newspaper L'Illustration at 100,000 and by the magazine L'Aérophile at 250,000 to 300,000; with the surprised railway lines overwhelmed, visitors were packed into trains and cattle cars and many did not reach Port-Aviation at all.
A number of aviation exploits occurred during the Grande Quinzaine, and the Prince of Monaco, Albert I, attended on several days. On 14 October, with French President Armand Fallières, his wife, many French government ministers, and Albert I looking on, Louis Paulhan in a Voisin biplane reached an altitude of despite very gusty winds, flew outside the perimeter of the airfield for a cross-country excursion, and returned to make a perfect gliding landing, to cheers and applause from the crowd. Jean Gobron braved the wind to complete six laps of the field in 11 minutes 42.5 seconds, and in calmer weather later in the day, Paulham again took to the air and completed 11 laps.
File:1909-10 WrightModelA CharlesDeLambert.jpg|thumb|Charles de Lambert in his Wright Model A in October 1909.
The most impressive flight during the Grande Quinzaine was one on 18 October by Charles de Lambert who, flying the Wright Model A No. 20, took off from Port-Aviation in the presence of Fallières and flew around the Eiffel Tower in Paris — to the great excitement of the city's population — before following the Seine to find his way back to Port-Aviation and returning to land at his starting point after a flight of either 48 minutes 39 seconds or 49 minutes 39.25 seconds, according to different sources. It was considered the first completion of an aerial navigation route, and it was the first time a pilot had flown over a city, with no possibility of landing safely in an emergency. He also set a new altitude record during the flight. A tragic first occurred at Port-Aviation the same day, however, when a Blériot monoplane flown by Alfred Leblanc plunged into a crowd of spectators, injuring more than a dozen people and killing a woman who became the first person in history to be killed on the ground by a falling airplane. The tragedy prompted the Paris lawyer Paul Foy to conduct the first prosecution for "furious driving in the air" in October 1909.
On 21 October 1909, the closing day of the Grande Quinzaine, Henri Brégi completed the longest flight of the event other than de Lambert's Eiffel Tower flight, covering 13 laps in 33 minutes 3.4 seconds, while de Lambert completed six laps in 12 minutes 9.3 seconds, reaching a height of.
File:Goliescu Avioplan.png|thumb|Rodrig Goliescu′s Avioplan in a hangar at Port-Aviation in 1909 after an inspection by the Aéro-Club de France.
When the 1909 air show season ended, Port-Aviation closed to the public for the winter, although flights continued from the airfield. In November 1909, Rodrig Goliescu tested his Avioplan No. II — the first aircraft with a tubular fuselage and the first with a tubed propeller to fly — at Port-Aviation, reaching an altitude of about. In an attempt to win the 1909 International Michelin Cup, presented for the longest nonstop fight distance of 1909, Léon Delagrange established a new distance record for monoplanes and a new world speed record on 30 December 1909 in a flight at Port-Aviation, covering in 2 hours 32 minutes at an average speed of approximately. However, he did not succeed in beating Henri Farman's record for distance for the year.