Newton House, 118–119 Picadilly, London. English Heritage Building ID: 424292
24 September 1901:¹ During a balloon ascent at the Crystal Palace, the Aero Club of Great Britain was founded by Frank Hedges Butler, his daughter Vera Hedges Butler, and Charles Stewart Rolls, modeled after the Royal Automobile Club. The Club was established to “. . . . the encouragement of aero auto-mobilism and ballooning as a sport.” In 1910, the club was granted the title, Royal Aero Club.
From 1931 to 1966, the Royal Aero Club was located at 119 Picadilly, London W.1.
Charles Stewart Rolls (left) and Miss Vera Hedges Butler (center) in the gondola of a gas balloon. The lady at right has been identified by a reader as the Hon. Mrs. May Constance Assheton Harbord (née Cunigham), who was the first woman in the United Kingdom to earn an aeronaut’s certificate. The gentleman to the rear is not known at this time. Date and location not known. (Unattributed)
¹ Date cited by Frank Hedges Butler in Fifty Years of Travel by Land, Water and Air, Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers, New York, 1920, at Page 374
Portrait de M. Henri Giffard, ingénieur. (Jacques-Martial Deveaux, 1863)
24 September 1852: French engineer Baptiste Henri Jacques Giffard (1825–1882 ) flew his hydrogen-filled dirigible, powered be a 3-horsepower steam engine, 17 miles (27 kilometers) from the Paris Hippodrome to Trappes in about three hours. During the flight he maneuvered the airship, demonstrating control.
The Giffard Dirigible (French: “directable”) consisted of an envelope 44.00 meters (144 feet, 4 inches) in length, 10 meters (32 feet, 10 inches) in diameter, and had a volume of 2,500 cubic meters (88,300 cubic feet). The envelope was filled with coal gas. A one-cylinder steam engine fueled with coke turned a 3.3-meter (10 feet, 10 inches) diameter, three-bladed pusher propeller mounted to the underslung gondola. The steam engine weighed just 250 pounds (113 kilograms), and with the boiler and fuel, came to 400 pounds (181 kilograms).
Illustration of Giffard’s dirigible. (National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)
Colonel Robin Olds, USAF, in the cockpit of McDonnell F-4C-21-MC Phantom II, 63-7668, on his last flight out of Ubon-Rachitani RTAFB as Wing Commander, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 23 September 1967. This was his 152nd combat mission of the Vietnam War. (U.S. Air Force)
23 September 1967: Colonel Robin Olds, United States Air Force, the Wing Commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Ubon-Rachitani Royal Thai Air Force Base, flew the final combat mission of his military career.
On this last mission, Colonel Olds flew a McDonnell F-4C-21-MC Phantom II, serial number 63-7668. Olds had flown this Phantom when he and Lieutenant William D. Lefever shot down a MiG-21 near Hanoi, 4 May 1967.
23 September 1967: Colonel Robin Olds’ last flight as Wing Commander, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, Ubon-Rachitani RTAFB, Thailand. The airplane is McDonnell F-4C-21-MC Phantom II 63-7668. (U.S. Air Force)
63-7668 had been delivered to the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing from the factory on 18 January 1965. It was lost in the South China Sea, 27 January 1968.
North American Aviation P-51B Mustang fighter in the Full-Scale Tunnel, NACA Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Hampton, Virginia, 23 September 1943. (NASA)Drag test of North American Aviation P-51B-1-NA Mustang 43-12105 in the NACA Full-Scale Tunnel. (NASA)
Le Marquis Bernard Henri Marie Léonard Barny de Romanet with a Spad-Herbemont, (S.20bis6) 9 October 1920. (Agence Meurisse 84138/BnF)
23 September 1921: While flight-testing the new Lumière-De Monge racer, Lieutenant Bernard Henri Marie Léonard Barny de Romanet was tragically killed in a crash.
Flight reported:
DEATH OF BERNARD DE ROMANET
It is with the most profound regret that we have this week to place on record the accident which resulted in the death of one of France’s finest and most popular pilots, Count Bernard de Romanet. It appears that on September 23 de Romanet took the de Monge machine up for a trial flight. He had previously tested the machine as a biplane, but this is said to have been the first flight made with it as a monoplane; and it proved to be the last. According to reports, de Romanet took off well and climbed to a height of a few hundred metres. He then flattened out, and, it is thought, opened out the engine. The machine is stated by eye-witnesses to have “leapt forward” and to have proceeded at a great pace, judged to be over 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour. The fabric of the left wing was seen to lift and fly back from the wing. The machine heeled over to the left, but for a few seconds it looked as if de Romanet would regain control, as he managed to right the machine. It then, however, got into a dive, and is stated to have dived straight into the ground. Needless to say, the unfortunate pilot was killed instantly by the terrible shock.
With regard to the cause of the accident, it is stated in our French contemporary L’Auto that it is though that the stitching of the fabric was at fault, the distances between the stitches which attached the fabric to the framework being 12 centimetres instead of the usual 2 centimetres.
Le Marquis Bernard de Romanet came of a very old French family. He was born at Macon on January 28, 1894, and at the age of 18 he commenced his military service in the cavalry. He was made an officer during the War, and distinguished himself, first in the cavalry and later as a pilot. Bernard de Romanet was an officer of the Legion of Honour, and held the Croix de Guerre with 18 palms and the Medaille Militaire. At the end of the War he took to civil aviation, and was always a prominent figure in speed races, being the crack pilot of the Spad-Herbemont machines. At Monaco he won the speed race of 1920, and he put up a splendid flight in last year’s Gordon-Bennett race, in spite of a broken oil pipe which forced him to land smothered in oil.
Some time ago de Romanet had a slight accident while testing a land machine with floatation gear. He alighted on the Seine, but the machine turned turtle instantly, and he was rescued by a motor-boat. While testing the de Monge machine for the Aerial Derby one of his wheels broke, without, however, causing serious damage to the machine. He was an interested spectator at the Derby, in which, but for the mishap, he would have been a competitor. His death will be regretted not only among his many friends, but in the world of aviation generally, for he was a great pilot, a great gentleman, and, last but not least, a real sportsman.
—FLIGHT, The Aircraft Engineer & Airships, No. 666 (No. 39, Vol. XIII), 29 September 1921, at Page 651
Lumière-de Monge. (L’Aérophile, 15 September 1921, at Page 280)
Barny de Romanet’s racing airplane, the Lumière-de Monge, was designed by Vicomte Louis-Pierre de Monge de Franeau, and built by Establissements Lumière. It was a strut-braced biplane which could rapidly be converted to a monoplane. The airplane was 7 meters (22 feet, 11.6 inches) long, with an upper wing span of 8 meters (26 feet, 3.0 inches) and lower span of 6 meters (19 feet, 8.2 inches). Its height was 2.75 meters (9 feet, 0.3 inches). The chord of the upper wing was 2.60 meters (8 feet, 6.4 inches) at the root, narrowing to 1.40 meters (4 feet, 7.1 inches) at the tips. The vertical gap between the upper and lower wings was 1.10 meters (3 feet, 7.3 inches). The plan of the upper wing was distinctively trapezoidal and had an area of 15 square meters (161.46 square feet). The lower, 5 square meters (53.82 square feet). It weighed 950 kilograms (2,094 pounds).
Lumière-de Monge biplane racer (Les Ailes. Premiere Annee—Nº 10., Thursday, 25 August 1921, at Page 2, Columns 4–5)
The Lumière-de Monge was powered by a water-cooled, normally-aspirated, 18.472 liter (1,127.265-cubic-inch-displacement) Hispano-Suiza 8Fb V-8 engine, with a compression ratio of 5.3:1. The direct-drive engine had a normal power rating of 300 horsepower at 1,850 r.p.m., and could produce a maximum of 400 horsepower. The V-8 engine had a dry weight of 360 kilograms (793.663 pounds). A Lamblin cylindrical radiator was placed above the upper wing.
The de Monge V.a. (FLIGHT, No. 655 (Vol. XIII, No. 29), 21 July 1921, at Page 492)
Le Marquis Bernard Henri Marie Léonard Barny de Romanet was born at Saint-Maurice-de-Satonnay, Saône-et-Loire, Bourgogne, France, 28 January 1894. He was the son of Léonard Jean Michel Barny de Romanet and Marie Noémie Isabelle de Veyssière. He descended from a very old French family.
Bernard Barny de Romanet joined the Cavalry at the age of 18 years, and was assigned to the 16º Regiment de Chasseaurs, 6 December 1912. During World War I, he served with both cavalry and infantry regiments as a Maréchel de Logis (master sergeant) before transferring to the Aéronautique Militaire in July 1915, as a photographer and observer.
After completing flight training in 1916, de Romanet was assigned as a pilot. In early 1918, de Romanet trained as a fighter pilot. He shot down his first enemy airplane 23 May 1918, for which he was awarded the Médaille Militaire, and was promoted to Adjutant (warrant officer). De Romanet was commissioned as a Sous-Lieutenant (equivalent to a second lieutenant in the United States military) several months later. After a fourth confirmed victory he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant (first lieutenant).
By August 1918, Lieutenant de Romanet was in command of Escadrille 167. He was officially credited with having shot down 18 enemy aircraft, sharing credit for 12 with other pilots. He claimed an additional 6 airplanes destroyed.
Lieutenant de Romanet was appointed Chevalier de la légion d’honneur, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with three étoiles en vermeil (silver gilt) stars and 10 palmes.
24 September 1901:¹ During a balloon ascent at the Crystal Palace, the Aero Club of Great Britain was founded by Frank Hedges Butler, his daughter Vera Hedges Butler, and Charles Stewart Rolls, modeled after the Royal Automobile Club. The Club was established to “. . . . the encouragement of aero auto-mobilism and ballooning as a sport.” In 1910, the club was granted the title, Royal Aero Club.
