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23-473: The company was founded in 1931 by Louis Béchereau together with the French automobile carriage-builder Georges Kellner . The factory, located at Boulogne-Billancourt , began building light monoplanes. In 1936–37 Avions Kellner-Béchereau built a short series of small monoplanes exploiting one of Louis Béchereau's patents, a full span lateral division of the wing into two sections forming a "double wing". The wing

46-542: A Caudron G.3 on the 28 metres (92 ft) by 12 metres (39 ft) roof of the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris, winning a 25,000 franc prize which had been offered before the war. His feat was considered a success despite a hard landing which seriously damaged the aircraft and injured Védrines. After his death a stone commemorating the achievement was placed there. Three months later, on 21 April 1919, he

69-410: A laurel wreath bound with a tricolour around his neck. Shortly after his arrival, however, he became involved in a dispute with Henri Roux, who had been a passenger in a rival attempt to fly to Cairo. A refusal to retract an accusation of unpatriotic behaviour led to Védrines being challenged to a duel : he refused to fight, saying he was not brave enough. An attempt by René Quinton , president of

92-673: A number of trial flights with the Ader Éole or Avion. In 1903 a nephew of Clément Ader in Levallois created the Société de Construction d'Appareils Aériens . In 1909 a client of the firm, Armand Deperdussin , had ordered the construction of an aeroplane that was exhibited in the windows of the Bon Marché store in Paris. In 1910 Deperdussin founded the Société de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin ( SPAD ) and appointed Béchereau as chief engineer. From

115-636: The Arts et Métiers in Angers in 1896, and finished his studies in 1901. Before joining the army he took part in a model-making competition organized by L'Auto , taking first prize for a model subsequently manufactured for sale in Parisian department stores. Demobilised in 1902, Béchereau joined a mechanical construction factory in Bezons where he took part in the development of a prototype car designed by Clément Ader . He took

138-687: The Société des Avions Bernard (also known as Société des trois B ) with Bernard and Marc Birkigt . He also collaborated with the Salmson motor company and, in 1931, joined the carriage-builder Georges Kellner to create the Kellner-Béchereau company. On the eve of the Second World War , he conceived a monoplane, the K.B.E 60 , for the French Navy ; its development was frustrated by events. The factory

161-682: The Aviation Populaire programme, the Air Ministry opting in favour of the Caudron C.270 and the Salmson Cri-Cri which were both bought in large numbers. Instead, Kellner-Béchereau, along with other manufacturers, built the Cri-Cri under licence. On the eve of the Second World War , Louis Béchereau conceived a monoplane, the Kellner-Béchereau E.60 , also known as K.B.E 60, an embarked monoplane for

184-663: The Avions Kellner-Béchereau company was subsequently merged with Morane-Saulnier . Louis Béchereau was given a post as a director at Morane-Saulnier until his retirement in 1950. Louis B%C3%A9chereau Louis Béchereau (July 25, 1880 in Plou, Cher – March 18, 1970 in Paris ) was a French aeronautical engineer and pioneer of French aviation . After having attended the École nationale professionnelle in Vierzon , Béchereau went to

207-599: The Blériot school at Pau . His rise to become one of the most prominent pilots of the time started when he won the 1911 Paris to Madrid air race in May 1911 flying a Morane-Borel monoplane , although the previous month he had attracted attention by dropping bouquets of violets onto the Mi-carême procession as it entered the Place de la Concorde in Paris. That year he also came second in

230-756: The Circuit of Britain race and third in the Circuit of Europe race. In 1912, flying the Deperdussin 1912 Racing Monoplane he was the first person to fly an aircraft at more than 100 mph (160 km/h) and he also won the Gordon Bennett Trophy race. Vedrines was politically active and in 1912 he stood unsuccessfully as a Socialist candidate for the Chamber of Deputies for the constituency of Limoux . He also made an early use of an aircraft for propaganda purposes, dropping leaflets demanding more aircraft for

253-774: The First World War he was largely involved in clandestine missions, landing behind enemy lines to drop or pick up agents. His Blériot XXXVIbis aircraft was named La Vache (The Cow) and was emblazoned with a picture of a cow, in homage to his family's roots in the Limousin region. On 15 July 1915 he was mentioned in the French Army Order of the Day for his work with the Sixth Army , for whom he had flown over 1,000 hours on reconnaissance missions. On 19 January 1919 he succeeded in landing

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276-460: The SPAD S.XIII . During the First World War , when Georges Guynemer received his first SPAD S.VII equipped with a Hispano-Suiza engine on 27 August 1916, he wrote to Louis Béchereau the next day praising the wonders of this new aeroplane. The air combat ace Guynemer thereafter had a long technical correspondence with Béchereau who he called the "ace of constructors" (" l’as des constructeurs "). It

299-601: The French Ligue Aérienne , to resolve the matter by asking Védrines to fight or leave Cairo merely resulted in Védrines returning to Paris and challenging Quinton to a duel in Roux's place, Vedrines desiring to fight with French Army revolvers at ten paces. The affair made headlines in the Parisian press for several weeks, but experts in duelling protocol eventually decided that there was no cause for attempted bloodshed. During

322-577: The French Army over the Chamber of Deputies in Paris in January 1912. In 1913 he flew from Paris to Cairo in a Blériot monoplane. The flight was attended by controversy at both its beginning and its end. On arrival at Nancy he was prevented from proceeding, since it was rightly thought that it was his intention to violate German airspace. This was a controversial issue at the time: aviators were pressing for

345-664: The Germans and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. After Prague he proceeded via Sofia , Constantinople (where he pleased the Sultan by dropping a Turkish flag on the Imperial palace), reaching Beirut on 25 December, Jaffa on the 27th, and finally, on the 29th, landing on the polo ground at Heliopolis , where he was greeted by a representative of the Khedive and by the French Agent, who placed

368-595: The aircraft carriers of the French Navy , but its development was frustrated by events. In 1939 Georges Paulin , who in 1934 had designed the Peugeot 601 Éclipse convertible automobile, joined the aerodynamical department of the Kellner-Béchereau factory. A member of the French Resistance , he was arrested in 1941 and executed the following year. The Kellner-Béchereau factory was destroyed by bombing in 1942 and

391-519: The beginning, Béchereau conceived the idea of monocoque fuselages, which would allow hitherto unthinkable levels of performance. His direct collaborators, Louis Janoir , chief pilot, and André Herbemont , were also graduates of the Arts et Métiers. Béchereau's revolutionary concept allowed the Deperdussin firm to win many prizes, including the famous Gordon Bennett Trophy in 1912 with Jules Védrines at

414-464: The controls (first flight to achieve 100 mph), and again in 1913 with Maurice Prevost at the controls. In 1911, one of his collaborators was Dutch aviation pioneer Frederick Koolhoven . Following a financial scandal involving the company's founder, Louis Blériot took over the company in 1914 and renamed it Société Pour l'Aviation et ses Dérivés , keeping the initials SPAD. Béchereau remained chief designer and developed numerous models, including

437-756: The first pilot to fly at more than 100 mph and for winning the Gordon Bennett Trophy race in 1912. Jules Védrines was born in Saint-Denis , an industrial suburb of Paris , on 21 December 1881. He was raised in the tough back alleys of Paris, shaping his rough and foul-mouthed nature which nevertheless made him a favorite of the French public. He was apprenticed to the Gnome engine manufacturing company, after which he spent six months in England as Robert Loraine 's mechanic in 1910, and then returned to France, where he gained his pilot's license (no. 312) on 7 December 1910 at

460-462: The freedom to fly anywhere without regard to national boundaries. Védrines' action helped to bring about a conference on the matter which was held the following year. After a long delay in Nancy, on 20 November Védrines circumvented the ban by the transparent ruse of heading west on taking off from Nancy, changing course for Prague when out of sight of the airfield. He was tried in absentia for this by

483-687: Was Guynemer who later presented Béchereau with the medal of the Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur on 12 July 1917 in the SPAD works, in the presence of the Minister of War. (Citation: " Vous avez donné la suprématie aérienne à votre pays, et vous aurez une grande part dans la victoire. C'est un splendide titre de gloire. C'est avec le sentiment de l'admiration et de la grande reconnaissance que nous vous devons tous, que je vous donne l'accolade. ") Béchereau left SPAD to create

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506-455: Was destroyed by bombing in 1942 and the Kellner-Béchereau company was then merged into Morane-Saulnier . Béchereau remained a director until his retirement in 1950. Article by Frédéric Champlon in Arts et Métiers magazine, April 2003 (see external links). Jules V%C3%A9drines Jules Charles Toussaint Védrines (29 December 1881 – 21 April 1919) was an early French aviator, notable for being

529-537: Was first tested on the single-seat Kellner-Béchereau E.1 on 1936, which was followed by two larger and more powerful two-seaters, the Kellner-Béchereau EC.4 and ED.5. Both of these were designed to meet the French Air Ministry's requirement for a pre-military trainer aircraft to be used by the clubs set up in the "Aviation Populaire" programme. The Kellner-Béchereau designs, however, were not ordered for

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