Aeronaut, Female. The first female aeronaut was one Madame Tibe or Thible. She joined the painter Fleurant aboard a balloon called the Gustave which ascended at Lyons on June 4, 1784, in the presence of the royal family of France and the King of Sweden. this lady, a Lyonnaise, was the wife of a worker in wax. Hearing that Fleurant was much discouraged at repeated failures to find a male companion, she of her own volition offered to mount with him to heaven and to glory. The balloon was a Montgolfière, beneath which hung a burning chafing-dish,--"un réchaud ardent."
For some reason Madame Tibe's fame has been eclipsed by that of the Citoyenne Henri, who is usually accredited with the honor of being the pioneer female aeronaut, though her ascent took place fourteen years later.
In 1798, on the VIth day of the 10th Floréal, the famous ballonist Garnerin announced that he would have a female companion for his coming ascent. On the 7th the Bureau of Police in Paris issued an injunction (un arrété) against the project. Replying to newspaper criticism, Commissioner Picquenard, of the Executive Directory, explained that the Bureau in issuing the edict was actuated by the sweet sentiments of humanity, cruelly wounded at the mere idea that a young girl should without adequate motive give herself up to an experiment whose issue she could not calculate.
"I was present," continues Director Picquenard, "when citizen Garnerin appeared before the Central Bureau. The officials asked him first if the object of his aerial journey was the perfecting of the art of aerostation; his answer was in the negative. Asked if he had foreseen the accidents which might result merely by the pressure of the air upon organs so delicate as those of a young woman, he answered that he did not think anything of the sort would happen. Asked, in case his companion should experience pain or discomfort produced by fear or a high elevation and should lose consciousness thereupon, whether he did not think his own safety and hers would be compromised in the most perilous manner, he replied that he would be responsible for all. Surely, citizen editor, you must feel that after such responses, the Central Bureau could do no otherwise than issue a philanthropic injunction, concerning which you have seen fit to make merry, perhaps without due consideration of the facts."
And citizen Picquenard wound up with the assurance that he had too much confidence in the morality and the republican principles of citizen the editor to doubt that he would change his views when the matter was brought properly before him.
Garnerin, at all events, did not change his views. He appealed to a higher tribunal, the members of the departmental administration, against the decision of the Central Bureau, and that body, after consulting with the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Police, came to the unanimous conclusion that the Bureau was at fault, and that "there was no more scandal in seeing two people of different sexes ascend in a balloon than it is to see them jump into a carriage." Furthermore, "it is impossible to prevent a female who has reached her majority to do in this fashion all that is permitted to men, and to give in thus ascending into the air a proof at once of confidence in the experiment and of personal intrepidity."
Thereupon Garnerin inserted an advertisement in L'Ami des Lois for the 20th Prairial, which contained this announcement: "The young citoyenne who will accompany me is delighted to see the day approach for the journey. I shall ascend with her from the Parc de Mousseaux, some time during the next ten days." On July 8, 1798, the event actually came off, and was thus described in the Rédacteur three days later:
On the 22 Fructidor took place the aerostatic ascent of citizen Garnerin with the first woman who ever had the courage to trust herself in the regions of air. This event drew to the Parc de Mousseaux an immense concourse of spectators. The young and beautiful aerial nymph, accompanied by the famous Saint-Georges, who gave her his arm, made the tour of the enclosure several times amid universal applause. Lalande, the astronomer, finally offered her his hand to assit her into the car; she leaped in with the utmost intrepididty; her journey was a complete success; the travellers descended at Goussainville, four leagues away from Paris.
Next day the Ami des Lois came out with some personal details. It announced that the young and beautiful aeronaut was named Citoyenne Henri, and that she had been actuated by no interested motive, although citizen Garnerin had subsequently made her a present.
The first professional female aeronaut, and the first woman to meet with a fatal accident in the pursuit of her profession, was Madame Blanchard, widow of the Blanchard who made the first voyage across the English Channel (see ENGLISH CHANNEL).
Madame Blanchard was a beautiful woman, and her reckless daring made her a favorite with the Parisians. Her apparent immunity from accidents tempted her to try the same experiment that had proved fatal to her husband. In 1819 she made her last ascent from the Tivoli Gardens. On reaching a certain altitude she was to discharge fireworks attached to the car. An eye-witness thus describes what happened:
From my window I saw her ascend. For a few moments the balloon was overwhelmed with clouds; presently it reappeared, to the horror of the spectators, one sheet of flame. There was an awful pause. Then the poor woman, enveloped and entangled in the netting of her machine, fell with an awful crash upon the slanting roof of a house in the Rue de Provence, and thence into the street, where she was taken up, a shattered corpse.
It is a little difficult to identify another female aeronaut alluded to in one of Washington Irving's letters. He was walking in company with Luttrell and Moore at the latter's suburban residence in Paris, when the conversation turned on a female aeronaut who had not been heard of since her recent ascent. Moore described her upward progress; the last seen of her, she was still ascending.
"Handed out," slipped in Luttrell, "by Enoch and Elijah."
In more modern times the first woman to receive a pilot's license from the Aero Society of France was the Baronesse de La Roche. She was also the first woman in the world who ever owned and operated an aeroplane. When she was given her first instruction by M. Chateau, the instructor for the Voisins, she made a few short jumps down the avitation field at Chalons, and then without warning started off on a long flight. She descended to the ground after flying three-quarters of a mile, and without leaving her seat rose again, this time to break the record for beginners by flying more than four miles and a half through a gusty wind without descending.
The first American woman to win a pilot's license was Miss Harriet Quimby, of New York, 1884-1902. Miss Quimby took her first lesson at the Moisant Aviation School at Hempstead Plains, Long Island, May 10, 1911. She qualified for her pilot's license by passing the required tests of the Aero Club of America (representing the federation of aero clubs of the world) on August 1 of the same year. "This does not mean, however, that I spent all this time learning to fly," she explained, in an article, "How I Won My Aviator's License," contributed to Leslie's Illustrated Weekly for August 24, 1911. "My lessons aggregated only 33, and actual time spent on each lesson was from 2 to 5 minutes. This is the stipulated time allotted to students at each lesson in all the leading schools of aviation in France. That my course of instruction covered as many weeks as it did was really due to adverse weather conditions."
The tests required for obtaining a pilot's license are as follows: The applicant for a license must be at least 18 years of age amd must pass three tests, namely, two distance tests, consisting of covering without touching the ground a close circuit not less than 5 kilometers (3.107 miles) in length, the course to be indicated by two posts not more than 500 metres (about 1640 feet) from each other, and the aviator to change his direction at each post, so as to make an uninterrupted series of figure eights. An applicant is required to make an altitude flight to a minimum flight of 50 metres (about 164 feet) above the starting-point. He is also required, as a further test in landing, to stop his motor not later than the time when the machine touches the ground and to stop his aeroplane at a distance of 165 feet from the point designated before the flight.
"It weas 6.42 in the morning, according to the official record," added Miss Quimby, "when the first trial flight began, covering a distance estimated at about 12 miles, and the flight ended at 6.51. Was I happy when I saw the signal of Prof. Houpert indicating that I had safely gone through the first half of the test? Honestly, I was. Not because I was tired, for driving a monoplane takes little physical strength. Not because I was timid, for I had been too intent on my work for that; but because I felt that my task was half accomplished, and in my frame of mind it seemed to me that half done was all done. Approaching the point designated before my flight as the place where I should descend, I lowered my planes and made a short descent from an alftitude of 75 feet, then straightened my machine and skimmed the surface of the ground, cutting off the engine just before I reached the ground, then rolled across the ground towards the canvas patch. Before I could leave my seat, my instructor, the Aero Club representatives, Captain Baldwin, and my classmates and friends were heaping their congratulations upon me.
"Waiting for a few moments for the engines to cool, I started on the second flight at 7.22, and again completed the five eights and landed at 7.31. My altitude was the third and final test. Again my faithful monoplane was put into service. The flight began at 7.45 and ended 6 minutes later, and then I was once more on earth to receive the welcome greeting of friends." Miss Quimby's fate was mournfully reminiscent of Madame Blanchard's. On July 1, 1912, she was killed by a fall from her aeroplane at Boston.