Airships over Paris, part 1

 

It's a bird's eye view of an iconic symbol of France—the Eiffel Tower. But the photo includes another large object which, for a time, was equally emblematic of marvelous French engineering and genuinely offered a pigeon's perspective of the River Seine. The caption on this colorized postcard reads:

Le Dirigeable "Ville de Paris" descendant le cours de la Seine,
pass devant la Tour Eiffel, vue prise du Trocadéro.

~

The "City of Paris" airship descending the Seine,
passing in front of the Eiffel Tower, view taken from Trocadéro.

This lighter-than-air aircraft was called, La Ville de Paris. It was a semi-rigid airship as the balloon's gasbag was flexible and not encased in a rigid framework like Ferdinand von Zeppelin's German airships. Instead a long lattice-like keel was suspended from the balloon with steel cable rigging. Mounted on it were the engine, propellor, pumps, gondola, fuel tanks, and sometimes a steering tailpiece.

The postcard was sent from Paris on 12 September 1908 to Wevelinghoven, Germany. 

 

The Ville de Paris was built in 1906 by Édouard Surcouf for Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe (1846—1919), a French petroleum businessman who was known as the "Oil King of Europe". Deutsch was also a prominent advocate and investor for automotive and aviation technology. He sponsored a number of contests to encourage the development of aviation, including the Grand Prix d'Aviation and the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize. In 1906 he formed a partnership with the Wright brothers to sell their powered aircraft to the French government. That first effort failed but later in August 1908 he helped bring the Wright brothers to France where they gave their airplane, the Wright Flyer, its first public demonstration at Le Mans.

 

 

Ballon dirigeable - Ville de Paris
Source: Wikimedia

This postcard gives a better side view of the French dirigible's keel and balloon. The caption reads: Dans le air le Dirigeable en marche ~ In the air the Airship in motion. The man who built the Ville de Paris was Édouard Surcouf (1862–1938), a French aeronautics engineer and airship pilot. His passion for lighter-than-air aircraft began in 1879 when at age 17 he made his first flight in a hot-air balloon. In 1908 Surcouf joined Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe to start a company, the Société Astra, that would manufacture the Wright brothers' aircraft under license as well as produce their own Astra aeroplanes. During 13 years in operation their firm also made 12 other dirigibles similar to this one.

The length of Surcouf's Ville de Paris was approximately 62 m (203 ft 5 in) with a balloon diameter of 10.5 m (34 ft 5 in). The cigar-shaped balloon contained 3,200 m3 (110,000 cu ft) of hydrogen gas to give the airship lift. Power came from a 4-cylinder petrol engine that generated 70 hp to rotate a single propellor. There was only room and lift for two crewmen and sometimes one or two passengers. You can spot them in the framework seen here.

The first trial flights were in October 1906 but the Ville de Paris's first official flight was taken on 11 November 1906 with Surcouf as pilot. A problem with the engine limited the time aloft to 1 hour 20 minutes. After landing the airship was deflated and taken back to the workshop for a number of modifications. It did not fly again until August 1907 when it made several successful flights which included passengers. More modification were made and on 14 November 1907 the Ville de Paris made a flight over central Paris which was likely when the photo in the first postcard was taken. 

Shortly after this flight Deutsch de la Meurthe offered his airship to the French Army as a replacement for this next airship which had suffered a tragic accident. 

 

 

 

This semi-rigid dirigible floats over another iconic Parisian structure that once dominated the skyline over the city's rooftops. The shape of the airship is similar to the Ville de Paris but this one came from a different manufacturer. The postcard's caption reads:

Aérostation Militaire – Le Ballon dirigeable "PATRIE"
évoluant à Paris au dessus de ''Opéra. 

Military Aerostation – The dirigible balloon “HOMELAND”
flying in Paris above the Opéra.

 

The airship was le dirigeable  "Patrie"  built in November 1906 for the French army by Paul and Pierre Lebaudy who owned Lebaudy Frères, a French sugar refinery based in Moisson, France. It was designed by Henri Julliot, the Lebaudy brothers' chief engineer. The Patrie – "Homeland" made its first free flight from its airfield in Moisson, about 45 miles downstream from Paris on the Seine, on 16 November 1906, just five days after the Ville dee Paris. It was considered a success and subsequently transferred to the French army which had invested in this type of lighter-than-air aircraft for its potential use in observation, signaling, and even dropping bombs. 

The postmarks on this card are not readable but the year 1908 is clear and I think the day could be 18 May or June. However by this year the postcard was no longer a souvenir but more a commemorative memorial of the Patrie. 

 

 

This next image from Wikipedia gives a closeup of the Patrie gondola with its four crewmen. The arrangement of its keel and equipment was different from the Ville de Paris. Here the airship rests on a conical point that supports the gondola and fuel tank while holding all the rigging.  

Gondola of French airship "Patrie", 1906
Source: Wikipedia

French airship "Patrie", 1906
Source: Wikipedia

 

The dirigible Patrie was similar in size to the Ville de Paris at 60 m (196 ft 0 in) long with a gasbag diameter of 10.5 m (33 ft 9 in). It was also powered by a 70 hp petrol engine, but used two propellors. It's maximum speed was 48 km/h (30 mph) but this was very relative to wind speed around it. The Patrie carried a crew of four. 

This postcard photo shows the Patrie on the ground, probably preparing to launch. The card was sent on 21 November 1908.

 

In November 1907 the French military moved the Patrie to a new operational base at Verdun, near the German border. The French government considered Germany its biggest threat and Verdun was one of a long chain of fortresses that guarded the border. The Lebaudy airship was expected to counter the larger Zeppelin airships used by the German army. The advantage of the Patrie's lighter semi-rigid design was that it could be easily disassembled and quickly moved to suit military requirements.

On 29 November 1907, mechanical problems forced the Patrie down at Souhesmes, about 10 miles east of its hanger in Verdun. The next day a storm brought high winds that tore the airship from its temporary moorings. Despite the efforts of over 200 soldiers who tried to restrain it, the wind force was too strong and the airship was carried away and swiftly lost from sight. 

Fortunately no crew was onboard but Patrie's gasbag retained enough lift to take it up to high altitude airstreams which directed it towards Britain. During the night it crossed the English Channel without being seen but by daybreak on 1 December it was spotted over Wales and then Ireland. The airship briefly struck ground near Belfast leaving behind some of its keel and propellor before rising again to be blown out over the North Atlantic Ocean. A little later it was spotted by a steamship off the Hebrides, but then lost contact. The Patrie was never seen again, presumably losing all its hydrogen and finally sinking into the sea.

Approximate flight path taken in November 1907
by the dirigible Patrie based on recorded sightings
Source: Wikipedia

Despite the loss of the Patrie the French Army remained confident in its design and had already ordered a sister-ship, the République, which was already under construction at Lebaudy's Moisson manufacturing facility. The Lebaudy company would go on to build eleven more airships for the French Army in the next decade. They also built a few ordered by the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Meanwhile the Ville de Paris was taken to Verdun on 15 January 1908. The flight covered a distance of 260 km (160 mi) which took 9 hr 38 min to arrive, including a break of almost an hour and a half when the airship was forced to land in order to repair the engine. More modifications were made, mainly to lengthen the airship and increase the gas volume. Over the next two years the Ville de Paris flew a few more times and in 1910 was used in the first tests of aerial photography.

 

* * *

 

 

In the first decade of the 1900s airships were thought to be the transportation of the future. The basic idea of a powered lighter-than-air vessel inspired many inventors, engineers, and even thrill seekers to develop their own method to overcome the immutable laws of gravity. And until the summer of 1908 when the Wright brothers first demonstrated their airplane to the public, the notion of an airplane was a concept only imagined by a few people. 

In an incredible short time both lighter and then heavier-than-air flying machines began to achieve real controllable flight. Yet these early aviation pioneers discovered countless problems and questions that no one had ever considered before. Is there breathable air at high altitudes? How fast is the wind and does a cloud have density? How can an aircraft navigate in the sky's three dimensions? 

Today, after a century of aviation innovation that has answered these questions and taken mankind to even greater heights, it is difficult to recognize that these postcards are also photos of wonder. It's a topic I've written about several times on this blog. Check out The Sky Watchers from March 2023 for another perspective.

Once upon a time the images of the dirigibles Ville de Paris and Petrie were pictures of fantastic machines capable of exploring the sky in a way that previously was thought impossible. To see an airship soaring overhead in 1908 was an extraordinary sight. Since the first flights were rare and very brief, only a few people had actually witnessed a flying machine themselves. A postcard of this wonder was the next best thing. 

The postcards also reflect a national pride that excited the French people at the time. These two airships represented a great achievement for French engineering that placed France the equal, if not the superior, in science and technology of other major countries, notably Germany. These first airships earned genuine bragging rights for all Frenchmen. And there would be more to come. Stay tuned for part 2 of Airships over Paris.

CODA

 

View of the Trocadéro Palace, Paris c. 1900
Source: Wikipedia

I was intrigued by the first postcard's viewpoint and wondered where the photographer positioned their camera. It was actually as not as difficult as I thought, only that the location for the tripod is  no longer there. It was on the roof of a grand building seen here on a hill northwest of the Eiffel Tower. It was the Trocadéro Palace, a colossal coliseum built for the Exposition Universelle of 1878, eleven years before the Eiffel Tower which was erected for the 1889 World's Fair.

 

 

The Trocadéro Palace, Paris c. 1900
Source: Wikipedia

The name "Trocadéro" refers to the Trocadéro fort which once defended the Spanish port of Cadiz. In 1820 King Ferdinand VII of Spain was detained there after he refused to adopt the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 which had established a constitutional monarchy. In 1823 the restored Bourbon King Louis XVIII of France invaded Spain and lay siege to Cadiz in order to free Ferdinand. The French forces prevailed and the Battle of Trocadéro was later commemorated by naming the site on the Seine for that military victory. 

Planning for the Exposition Universelle began in 1876 with an intention of using the Trocadéro  hill with its fantastic view of Paris for a huge complex. The Palace was designed with numerous exhibition and conference rooms arranged around a 4,600 seat auditorium which was twice the size of the Garnier opera house. The concert hall boasted of an immense concert organ that had 66 stops, 72 registers, and 1,470 pipes. The building and grounds were decorated with dozens of huge sculptures, statues, and fountains and was surrounded by an ornamental garden. 

Initially the Palais du Trocadéro was expected to be only a temporary structure used just for the duration of the exhibition. However developers decided to preserved it and the Trocadéro was used for subsequent fairs and occasional public concerts or conventions. However because of the hall's great size the acoustics were unsuited for theatre, opera, or orchestra performances so it was rejected by most Parisian arts organizations. It was demolished in 1935 in preparation for the 1937 Exposition Universelle, and replaced by the Palais de Chaillot. 

By coincidence that same year on 6 May 1937 the LZ 129 (Luftschiff Zeppelin), the German airship Hindenburg, burst into flames while docking at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. This terrible disaster took the lives of 36 people.   

 

  

 

 

 

 

To finish this story of French airships
here is a short silent film entitled
Le Ballon dirigeable Le Patrie
directed by Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968)
a pioneer French filmmaker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where bridges over water are never any trouble.