A Report

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

YOUNG MARCEL BLOCH, later known as Dassault, attended France's four-year-old aeronautics school, then joined the air force. In 1915, in the middle of a war in which new weapons and aviation were displaying the full force of military power, Bloch, assisted by Henry Potez, was asked to coordinate the construction of the Caudron G3 aircraft. A few months later, the air force asked Bloch and Potez to design a new rudder for the same plane. Bloch did more than what had been asked of him. He thought the propeller was too weak, so he designed a new one, the famous Eclair propeller. Bloch wanted to pursue his designs further, and with Potez and Louis Coroller he created a two-seater plane called the SAE 4 that could reach nearly 21,000 feet in seven minutes and fly 120 mph for up to two hours. At the end of 1917, the air force ordered 1,000 of them. The first plane rolled off the assembly line on November 11, 1918-Armistice Day-and Bloch's contract was canceled.

During the 1930s, Bloch designed several military, postal and passenger aircraft. In the meantime Germany was re-arming.

After the defeat of France in 1940 Bloch became a victim of the Vichy regime's anti-Semitic laws and was banned from professional life. He was soon deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war, he changed his name to Dassault (the name his brother had adopted during the French Resistance), and designed France's first jet aircraft, the Ouragan, in 1947. From then on, Dassault designed and manufactured all of France's military aircraft, including the Mystere, Etendard, Mirage and Rafale.

The Voyager may be the finest machine that's ever taken flight. Designed by Burt Rutan, this 111-foot airborne trimaran was powered by two "push-pull" engines - 130 HP in the front, 110 HP in the rear. It was made of a composite of paper, surrounded by carbon, glass and kevlar. In weighted 1,855 pounds when empty, and 11,301 pounds when fully loaded with the 17 gas tanks distributed between the wings, the fuselage and the side spars, and the two-person crew. From December 14-23, 1986, Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan took turns piloting and resting in a tiny cabin space measuring 33 inches high, 23 inches wide and 78 inches long. They flew at an average speed of 115 mph, and navigated 24,988 miles around the globe without stopping and without refueling, an unprecedented exploit.

Stunt flying began in France when adolphe Pegoud performed his historic loop-the-loop in 1913, although a Russian lieutenant had, perhaps inadvertently, done the same thing a few weeks earlier. Women pilots have held their own in this field where flying is an art form. Helene Boucher was one of the first. Catherine Maunoury, world champion in 1988 (the second French woman to do so, after Madeleine Delcroix in 1968) and nine times champion of France, discovered her love of flying when she was only 8 years old. She earned her pilot's license at the age of 15 and began stunt flying at 18.

PAN AM FOUNDER Juan Trippe envisioned a global air transportation system that would be in place by the early twenty-first century. In reality, his dream probably won't be realized until around 2020. When it is, supersonic aircraft will cover the great uninhabited regions of the earth as rapidly as possible. NASA, the FAA and the US aeronautics industry are currently working on developing these aircraft, which will seat 200, fly across the Pacific with one stopover, and have a noise level similar to that of today's 747. It will be fuel-and-cost-efficient, with relatively reasonable fares, and will fly continually westward as it circles the globe, adding hours to the day with the various time changes. Along heavily traveled transoceanic routes, supersonic flights will be continually westward as it circles the globe, adding hours to the day with the various time changes. Along heavily traveled transoceanic routes, supersonic flights will be backed up by subsonic giants like the 747 and the Airbus A3XX. They in turn will be backed up by long-haul 767, 777, A330 and A340 craft. Today's turbopropellers will be replaced by new jets seating between 35 and 100 passengers, like those flown by Embraer or Canadair. By 2010, aircraft such as those currently under study by Bell-Boeing may be able to take off and land vertically, thus allowing for "vertiports" in city centers. Finally, a large percentage of passenger traffic will be shifted to business flights, particularly long-haul aircraft like the Gulfstream V, Canadair Global Express and Falcon 900 EX, and ultimately Dassault's supersonic tripe-engine Falcon, which will be able to carry eight passengers at Mach 1.8 on transoceanic flights. The real revolution, however, will come from airborne navigational systems used in an "Open Skies" schema that will expand the limited flights paths currently in use. Aircraft will be equipped with high-tech, computerzied navigational system that are decentralized, individualized and interconnected with those of other aircraft.

On July 31, 1997, the world's tiniest jet-powered plane made its maiden flight from the Rennes-Saint-Jacques airport. The 163-pound Cristaline Jet, dubbed "Cri-Cri," had two gas propane engines, each with a 38-pound thrust. Pilot Yves Duval, Air France Flight captain aboard the Airbus A340, was a leading aeronautics figure. He was killed in an air collision on April 26, 1998.

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