A Report

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

FASTER AND FASTER. On both sides of the Atlantic, two women with the same first name, France's Jacqueline Auriol in a Mirage III and Jacqueline Cochran of the United States in a Lockheed F 104, smash world speed records above 1,240 mph. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin lifts off in the Vostok 1 and becomes the first human being in outer space. The American Alan Shepard soon follows on Mercury III. Decolonization and protest are the signs of the times. From Berkeley to Prague, from Berlin to Paris, the youth revolt proves Bob Dylan right-"the times they are a-changin'." A new word enters the vocabulary: "charter." The age of mass jet travel begins.

ON THE FLOWER-COVERED steppes of Kazakhstan, history is about to be made. A Zemiorka rocket stands ready. In the desert, a bus comes to a stop and Yuri Gagarin steps out, already in his space suit, and relieves himself. A tradition has been founded: from now on, every space team passing this way will repeat his action in the same place. At the foot of the rocket, a group of men in overcoats surrounds the grinning Gagarin. They are the Soviet Union's top technical, military and political leaders. They kiss Gagarin, and then he is suddenly left alone. He announces: "The pilot Gagarin is ready for the first flight aboard the cosmic vessel Vostok." Accompanied by technicians, he waddles toward the elevator, turns and salutes. From now on, he will be known by his radio code name, Cedar.

Dust and smoke fill the air and the landscape shudders from the noise and vibrations as the rocket's 20 engines explode into life. The ship rises, carrying the first human being into the great blue beyond. Sixty-eight minutes after takeoff, the Vostok begins its descent toward the Earth, returning Gagarin from the absolute tranquility and darkness of space.

Three weeks later. At Cape Canaveral on the west coast of Foorida, some 500 reporters have gathered from around the world to witness the first American-manned space flight. On May, 5, Alan Shepard, known for his sarcasm and unlimited self-confidence, is awakened at 1:10 am. Four hours later, dressed in a silver space suit, he is inside the tiny Mercury capsule, which contains only a seat and a control panel. It is stuck on top of a modified Redstone missile, designed by the young Wernher von Braun and his team. He would later create the Saturn V to take man to the moon. The Mercury is equipped with a true cockpit with flight controls.

Gagarin had no control over his own vessel. Millions of television spectators watch as the Redstone shoots off, its roar heard for miles around. Shepard's calm voice is heard speaking to the control tower. Two-and-a-half minutes later, the capsule separates from the empty rocket 96 miles above the earth, and Shepard enters the weightlessness of space. Less than 30 minutes later, a helicopter drops the jubilant astronaut off on the bridge of the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain, Shepared has not orbited the earth-he has only made a suborbital voyage above the Bahamas-but he has traveled in outer space. He has tested the automatic and manual pilots and evaluated the performance of the engine. President John Kennedy invites Shepard to Washington, DC to decorate him and there is a ticker-tape parade for hero in New York City. Shepard had opened the way for the US space program and its trip to the moon.

In the world of aviation, 1927 was the year of Charles Lindbergh. And in Hollywood, it was the first year of the Oscar awards. The best film of the year was Wings, a great movie about aviation by William Wellman, a former pilot. Flying became a favorite theme among Hollywood directors, who regularly called on the top-notch pilot Paul Mantz to orchestrate, produce perform stunts for, and film more than three-quarters of the aerial sequence in US movies for some 40 years. In The Spirit of Saint Louis by Billy Wilder, he even piloted the old patched-together crates from the Lindbergh era. He filmed one too many flights: In 1965, he was killed in an accident while flying for Robert Aldrich's The Flight of the Phoenix.

In 1965, an emotional ceremony linked two major events in the history of French aviatrices: Adrienne Bolland, who crossed the Andes in 1921, awarded the Legion of Honor to Elizabeth Boselli, an air force officer and pilot. She became a pilot against her family's wishes and was one of 12 pilots forming a women's military group. When the army no longer wanted women, Elizabeth turned to stunt flying, private planes and gliding. She returned to military life in 1953, and in 1955, broke a distance record by flying 1,448 miles aboard a Mistral.

It was 2:56 GMT on July 21, 1969. Neli Armstrong had just set foot on the moon-"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..." One July 20, Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo 11 command module (Columbia) as Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin bboarded the Eagle lunar module. Two hours later, armstrong was the first to walk on the moon, Aldrin the second.

The world's biggest and fastest passenger planes make their maiden flights within just a few weeks of each other. On February 9, 1969, the first Boeing 747 jumbo jet takes off from Seattle. On March 2, the first supersonic aircraft, the British-French Concorde, leaves Toulouse. Europe's aircraft industry rises to the challenge of the United States. The first in a promising line of planes, the Airbus A300, makes its maiden flight on October 28, 1972. Despite the oil crisis, air transportation grows by leaps and bounds. Europe's most modern airport, Roissy-renamed Charles de Gaulle-opens on March 13, 1974. That same year, Air France hires its first woman pilot, Deniele Decure.

THE CANADIAN PIONEERED the idea of using seaplanes to flight forest fires in the early 1960s, an idea which seemed only natural, given the numerous lakes offering a continuous water supply. In 1963, two Catalina seaplanes salvaged from World War II were dispatched to Marignane, and the first fire-fighting aircraft base in France was set up. Today, 93 pilots and a fleet of approximately 30 aircraft - mainly Canadairs and Trackers - are stationed at the base. They work in coordination with firefighters and forest rangers, providing round-the-clock surveillance, particularly in high-risk zones. In general, tanker pilots are seasoned aviators who are required to have 12 years' professional piloting experience under their belts. They are also required to have clocked 3,500 flight hours and to be under 40 years of age. Many of them have flown in the army or navy. Flying tankers to flight forest fires is a quasi-military operation: conditions are extreme; they must fly at low altitudes at stalling speed to allow for more efficient dropping; winds are frequently heavy; and visibility can be sharply reduced by billowing smoke. Twenty-six pilots of the Civil Safety Association have been killed during fire-fighting missions. "We are fully aware of the risks inherent in the job, but we don't well on them, particularly since we're used to working under maximum safety conditions," claims Frederic Duriez, who has been flying with the Civil Safety Association for four years. "We don't do it because we necessarily have a death wish, it's more the thrill of piloting." It's the kind of thrill that many recruits have experienced as fighter pilots. They attack forest fires as if they were launching an assault on an enemy-"Although this enemy," adds Duriez, "is every man's man's enemy." The pilots acknowledge the importance of the land-based squads of fire-fighters who are in direct contact with the fires. "The tankers don't extinguish the fires all on their own," explains Duriez. "We're a bit like the heavy artillery that acts as a backup. Any fire that isn't put out on the ground after the water is dropped will spread quickly out of control."

Didier Daurat claims his life began the day he earned his pilot's license. Aviation was everything to the man who, with his friend Massimi and the industrialist Pierre-Georges Latecoere, helped set up the Aeropostale after World War I. The French airmail service, which linked Toulouse, Africa and South America, included such legendary pilots as Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Jean Mermoz. Daurat stood behind his pilots and they were all deeply loyal to him.

Throughout the 1970s, the United States launched the Pioneer and Voyager probes, which were the first objects to leave the solar system. The probes carried numerous messages which were intended to represent our world. A plate depicts a flight plan, pair of humans, and digital images of a bird's flight, while records reproduce the essential sounds of our planet: the sea, the wind, a dog barking, a newborn's cry, and a few measures of music by Mozart and Chuck Berry.

Nearly 30 years after the maiden flight of the Concorde, it is still the most admired aircraft flying the skies today. Although several dozen pilots have flown the Concorde, the man who is most frequently associated with the supersonic craft is Andre Turcat. Before flying this plane, Turcat had already received the prestigious Harmon trophy for flying at Mach 2.2 on a Friffon II. As chief test pilot, he was at the controls during the first flight of the Concorde on March 2, 1969. He was also the chief pilot for its first commercial flight, on January 21, 1976.

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