A Report

| 1898-1908 | 1909-1918 | 1919-1928 | 1929-1938 | 1939-1948 |
| 1949-1958 | 1959-1968 | 1969-1978 | 1979-1988 | 1989-1998 |

Aviation comes into its own during the war years, with American manufacturers the big winners. The DC-3 passenger plane is pressed into service. Renamed the Dakota, it is mass-produced and used for transporting paratroopers. After 1945, heavy bombers lead to new passenger aircraft. The future lies with technology developed during the war : jet engines and rockets. On October 14, 1947, Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager breaks the sound barrier for the first time in a Bell X-I rocket plane, achieving a speed of Mach 1.15. Air France is nationalized in 1948, with Max Hymans as Chairman. He heads the company until 1961.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, and Operation Barbarossa was under way. By November, the German army was just 19 miles from Moscow. Leningrad was under siege, three million Russians had been taken prisoner, a large part of the Red Army was wiped out and the air force was grounded. The situation looked hopeless.

In the summer of 1941, Maria Raskova, a record-breaking aviatrix, organized the 588th night bomber squadron - composed entirely of women, from the mechanics to the navigators, pilot and officers. Most of them were around 20 years old. The 588th began training in Engels, a small town north of Stalingrad. In a few months, the women were taught what it takes most people four years to learn. One June 8, 1942, three planes took off on the first mission. The target: the headquarters of a German division. The raid was successful, but one aircraft was lost. The 588th fought non-stop for months, flying 15 to 18 missions a night. "It was a miracle we didn't lose more aircraft", recalls Popova. "Our planes were the slowest in the air force. They often came back riddled with bullets, but they kept flying." On August 2, 1942, her plane crashed in the Caucasus. She and her navigator were found alive a few days later.

The winter of 1942 was brutal, with the temperature plummeting to -54o F during the battle of Stalingrad. Parts of the aircraft were so cold that they ripped the skin off of anyone who touched them. By January 1943, the women of the 588th were worn out. Sleepless nights, constant stress, the loss of friends and sexual harassment from male colleagues took their toll. Women in the 588th flew up to 500 night raids! From the battle of Stalingrad to the fall of Berlin, the regiment made 24,000 combat flights and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. It was awarded the Soviet Union's highest collective military honor. Years after the war, Nadia Popova said, "At night sometimes, I look up into the dark sky, close my eyes and picture myself as a girl at the controls of my bomber and I think, 'Nadia, how on earth did you do it?"

Air France has never changed as much as it did during the three years following World War II. On January 2, 1946, Air France, whose name had been taken away during the war, got it back again. On June 16, 1948 the company was nationalized; Max Hymans became Chairman and Henri Ziegler Chief Executive Officer.

In December 1945, the fleet was an eclectic assortment of planes and seaplanes, including the prewar Bloch 220, Dewoitine 338, Wibault 282 and LeO 246; twin-engine Lockheed planes inherited from the Free French forces; aircraft seized from German plants in France, such as the Junkers 52, Siebel 204 and Seemowe; and American surplus Douglas C-47 and C-53 planes. The fleet had no four-engine craft. The first DC-4 started flying on April 4, 1946 and the first Constellation on July 11, 1946.

A fair number of postal and passenger routes served mainland France. They were extended to North Africa, but only from bases in southern France. Business flights to Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Geneva and Zurich originated in Paris. Algiers was the hub of a dense network in Africa, Djibouti and Cairo reached the Indian Ocean islands. Darkar was the hub of an extensive network stretching to Syria. Ankara and Baghdad via Tehran. According to the winter 1945-46 schedule, the Saigon route was "for military purposes only." There were no trans-Atlantic routes.

Three years later, the Air France network was the world's largest. Local routes were abolished, many stopovers necessitated by short-range aircraft were eliminated, and long-haul services were set up. By late 1948, there were nine weekly Constellation flights to New York, including the "Golden Comet," complete with sleeping berths. The Constellation also flew to Buenos Aires once a week. The DC-4 make twice-weekly flights from Paris to Saigon, and onward to Shanghai via Hong Kong every two weeks. There were direct flights from Paris to Algiers. The fleet included thirty or so long-haul four-engine aircraft and approximately the same number of twin-engine DC-3 planes.

An aviatrix of epic proportions, Cochran was orphaned at an early age and grew up in poverty. In 1932, she learned to fly, met Amelia Earhart in 1935, and went on to win the Los Angeles-Cleveland Transamerica in 1938. She found the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II, and shattered 11 speed records from 1947 to 1951. In 1953, Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Henri Ziegler played a key role in boosting Air France's reputation. A polytechnic graduate, test pilot and aeronautics engineer, he was a top international aeronautics specialist by the age of 30. During World War II, Ziegler was chief of staff of the Free French alongside General Koenig. After the war, he was an Air Ministry advisor, assistant director (technical) and then managing director of Air France, and later chairman of Sud-Aviation, which pioneered Airbus. His son Bernard was the first pilot an Airbus.

Aircraft powered by twin engines became a thing of the past when Sikorsky built the first four-engine plane, the Grand. The young Russian engineer, born in Kiev to a doctor, was only 24 at the time. His mother had inspired his passion for flying by teaching him about Leonardo da Vinci's flying experiments. Sikorsky built the Grand, then the Ilya Mourometz, but his greatest achievement was developing the VS-300 in 1939, the world's first practical single-rotor helicopter.

"THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLANE EVER BUILT," the Constellation Super Starliner, becomes the legendary luxury liner of the sky. But the days of propeller-driven aircraft are numbered as civil aviation benefits from breakthroughs in military technology. After the De Havilland-Comet, the Boeing 707 conquers the North Atlantic. Not to be outdone, France manufactures the Caravelle for short and medium hauls. The jet age and rock'n roll are born at the same time. A man-made satellite called Sputnik circles the Earth for the first time. The Soviet Union touches off a space race during the Cold War years.

THE LOCKHEED 1649, called the Super Starliner, or Super Star for short, was the most beautiful of a dying breed: piston engine long-haul planes. These sole survivors of the jet revolution had sleek, flexible wings and glinting silver fuselages. Their engines were as delicate as glass but roared like the bass notes of a huge pipe organ.

General de Gaulle chose the aircraft for his state visits because of its speed rather than its gracefulness. The Super Star's maiden voyage would take the chief of state of Madagascar for the ceremonies making the island's independence from France. The president had to be back in Paris as soon as possible so he had asked Air France for the Swiftest plane in its fleet.

The airline had just received its Super Stars, and the crews were fascinated by their grace and versatility. De Gaulle's plane was fitted out with 15 first-class seats, a stateroom and two dining rooms. The president invited a guest of honor along for the ride: the son of an Air France founder, who was then based in Madagascar, and his mother. It was a hot, early summer afternoon. The asphalt at Orly was gummy. Two flight crews were in the plane's cockpit. Two hours after takeoff, the Super Star thundered across the Mediterranean. The little boy was storing up a lifetime of memories: the Nile mirroring the African moon, the first stars coming out in a pure sky and the sight of Aswan below.

The four rumbling, 3,400-horsepower engines spit out flames three feet long. The sun rose as the plane flew along the Red Sea, turning it copper and gold. The hostesses, accustomed to presidential travel, brought the passengers trays of fresh fruit, toast and coffee. The little boy woke up wishing the journey would never end. He was allowed to sit in the tiny cockpit, the brain center of this mighty bird. Few of the operations were automatic on board this plane, and it took four men to run the mighty airship: a pilot, co-pilot, radio mechanic and navigator. The Super Star landed on the old Tananarive airstrip in the middle of the bush, 30 miles from town, after a record-breaking flight that took 19 hours and 22 minutes.

Auriol, a Resistance member often on the run from the Gestapo, was severely injured in a 1949 plane crash but went on to have a glorious career. She was the first woman test pilot and set many speed records. She was the first European (and one of the rare aviatrixes) to break the sound barrier, on Aug 15, 1953, two months after the American Jacqueline Cochran. The two competed with one another for 15 years. After Cochran retired, Auriol set a record aboard a Dassault Mystere XX: 620 miles at a speed of 533 mph.

On June 4, 1958, General Charles de Gaulle arrived in Algiers aboard a Caravelle to announce that he would make sure Algeria remained a French colony (when in fact he knew he wouldn't). The Caravelle had first flown on May 27, 1955, but did not start to fly regular routes until May 1959. Specialists marveled over the innovative aircraft, with its two engines in the rear of the fuselage. Its159-mile flight from Paris to Dijon was hailed as a major event. The aircraft marked France's return as a contender among the air transportation giants. Its last flight was on Aug 3, 1991, for Air Inter.

Chuck Yeager was in serious pain on the day in October 1947 when he slid aboard his Bell X-I, the Glamorous Glennis. The night before, he had fallen off his horse and broken two ribs, but he was determined to make the flight as scheduled. Jack Ridley, Yeager's mechanic and the only one in whom he had confided, had slipped a piece of wood into the cockpit so that he could operate some of the controls without having to move his injured side. Yeager achieved a speed of Mach 1.05, and the first sonic boom made news around the world.

| 1898-1908 | 1909-1918 | 1919-1928 | 1929-1938 | 1939-1948 |
| 1949-1958 | 1959-1968 | 1969-1978 | 1979-1988 | 1989-1998 |