Montaudran ( French pronunciation: [mɔ̃todʁɑ̃] ) is a suburb of Toulouse situated to the south east of the city ( secteur 5 ), by the Hers-Mort river. It is notable thanks to the Aéropostale company and its aerodrome which was the base for the aeronautical pioneers between 1917 and 1933 who established the first commercial air routes with postal flights to Casablanca , Dakar ... and on to South America .
7-463: 500 m further north is a group of two primary schools (originally one boys', one girls') and a nursery school named after one of the Aéropostale pilots, Henri Guillaumet . Montraudan is also the home of a well-frequented sports association with a rugby section. Toulouse-Montaudran Airport , disused since 1 January 2004. The runway is crossed by a road and is situated to the south of and parallel to
14-524: A number of south Atlantic crossings, he was appointed managing director of Air France . On 27 November 1940, while flying to Syria with Jean Chiappe , the new French High Commissioner to the Levant , his four-engined Farman F.220 NC.2234 airliner Le Verrier was shot down by an Italian fighter over the Mediterranean Sea . The 1995 docudrama Wings of Courage by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud
21-525: A village whose inhabitants could not believe his story. This exploit made him stand out among the 'stars' of Aéropostale. To his friend Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , who had come to find him, he said, " Ce que j'ai fait, je te le jure, aucune bête ne l'aurait fait ." (What I have done, I swear to you, no animal would have done.) Saint-Exupéry tells the adventure of Guillaumet in his 1939 book Terre des hommes (published in English as Wind, Sand and Stars ). After
28-793: Is being built to prepare the area to receive the Toulouse Aerospace campus to be built on the old runway between the railway and the ring road. It is expected to be the most productive aeronautical campus in Europe, and the future base of the Galileo satellite navigation system. Montaudran is served by: There is a possibility of a new transport link by the Toulouse tramway . 43°34′28″N 1°29′26″E / 43.57444°N 1.49056°E / 43.57444; 1.49056 Henri Guillaumet Henri Guillaumet (29 May 1902 – 27 November 1940)
35-540: The Toulouse-Narbonne railway track. Until the 1970s, the Breguet aircraft factories used it as a take off and landing test runway for aircraft under repair (manufacture having moved to Colomiers ). The runway was taken out of use and has been obstructed by blocks of concrete where the road crosses it. The last flight of an aeroplane from Montaudran was on 18 December 2003. Montaudran is undergoing urban renewal . Housing
42-502: The mail between Argentina and Chile. On Friday 13 June 1930, while crossing the Andes for the 92nd time, he crashed his Potez 25 at Laguna del Diamante in Mendoza, Argentina, because of bad weather. [1] He walked for a week over three mountain passes. Though tempted to give up, he persisted while thinking of his wife, Noëlle, until June 19 at dawn when he was rescued by a teenage boy. He reached
49-692: Was a French aviator . Guillaumet was born in Bouy , Marne . He was a pioneer of French aviation in the Andes , the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic. He contributed to the opening up of numerous new routes and is regarded by some as the best pilot of his age. " Je n'en ai pas connu de plus grand " (I've never known a greater one), said Didier Daurat , operations director of the Aéropostale . Guillaumet carried
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