Flying girl

This autumn Sunday 1930, at Orly airfield, people flocked to the barriers before taking an air trip with a pilot. Most of them spend their monthly savings on such trips.
-"Hello Miss Boucher. Every Sunday here ?
-Not just the Sundays, Mr Liaudet. The Saturdays as well !
- Right, Le Folcavez told me so. He can't turn his eyes to the barriers without seeing you. Le Folcavez is your big friend, isn't it ?
- Yes, He took me on my maiden trip four months ago.
- Four months already ?
- Yes sir, the fourth of July.
- I suppose you've been flying since then.
- Only once, with Mr. Le Folcavez indeed !

-The way you say "only once", you look unhappy. You like flying that much ?
- Oh yes Mr Liaudet.
The young girl's look was full of fervour and earnest. Indeed, Le Folcavez had told Liaudet that the young Hélène hardly muttered thanks for the maiden trip. She remained motionless and speechless for quite a while, a remote glance in a hard featured face. Definitely, she didn't resemble anybody else.
In ten months, the young Hélène Boucher will fly some five or six times, always invited by Liaudet or Le Folcavez, or Maillet. She trusted them, and they rendered their esteem.
A perfect friendship clearly develops between pilots and the young woman. She calls them by their first name and they called Hélène by the diminutive "Leno".
It's in aviation that she will accomplish her destiny, and it's Henri Farbos, founder of the "Aeroclub des Landes", who will offer her the perfect occasion. Some afternoon, he told Miss Leno :
" For my flying school in Mont de Marsan, capital of the Landes department, I just hired your friend Liaudet as instructor. But I also need students, and I wish there are girls among them. I will propose to the board to vote a grant for the first female students enroling in my school. Do you accept to be the first ?".
This was the first step towards Hélène's destiny. Restless, and after obtaining her pilot's licence, she decides to fly from one town to another to complete the hundred hours that qualify for participating in air shows. She flies to Lyon, Cannes, Marseilles. And then returns to le Bourget.
Next she spends eight days her eyes riveted to maps while friends wonder what she is up to.
And one morning she shows up fully equipped. A morning not particularely favourable for leaving because of the poor weather.
- "You're going far, Leno ?"
- I'm going for my Tour de France !"
She had established the itinerary of a circuit with landings in Lyon, Nimes, Toulouse, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Rochefort, Tours... It was a hazardous project, but such was her decision. She sticked to it despite the adverse meteorologic conditions during the entire trip.
With a total of hundred flying hours and a perfect executed night flight guided by beacon for landing under distorded perspective and overstretched shadows that fool true distances, she finally obtained her licence for commercial aircraft.

A DIFFICULT START

Hardly airborne, the engine gives up and losing speed, Hélène has to land immediately between the trees, without turning to avoid stalling. Liaudet used to say : "Engine trouble at take-off does not allow turning ! Land straight ahead !" With deafening noise the plane ended up hanging in the branches of two trees, but Hélène was unhurt. Once repaired, "Léno" went to England early September to get her plane. In 1933, advised by her friend Codos, a seasoned pilot, Hélène Boucher defies another challenge : an air raid to Indochina. February 13, she takes off from le Bourget arriving the same evening in Pisa, And the next day in Naples. The 16th she lands in Athens, the 20th in Alep and the 21th in Ramadi, 110 km from Bagdad. There she experiences serious engine troubles with the carter fissured. She has the plane transported by train to Bagdad but the engine in beyond repair. March 6, she receives a replacement engine from Paris but it does not mean her troubles are over.

With defeaning noise the plane ended up hanging in the branches of 2 trees

Hélène returns to Paris in her poorly repaired plane, dead-tired, low-spirited and in tears, like a child, she rests, her brow on her folded arms. Some friends of hers, Maillet, Codot, Bardel, look at her touched by her despair. Codot tries to cheer her up :
"-Don't weep Leno ; you haven't done less then any of us would in your place. Your kindness and gentleness infortunately met the meanness of men ; your experience will make you stronger."

FIRST SUCCESSES

Hélène renders the plane to its English proprietors saying : "Here is your machine. Sell it for the best price and keep my dues". After that, she still had to get another plane to try something else as fast as possible. Some day, Maillet told her :

-"You know Mauboussin, the constructor ? He's the type who might lend you a machine for the 12 hours of Angers that will be held in two weeks".
- I don't know him and I wouldn't dare to ask him for a plane.
- I know him and I'll ask him for you.
At first, Mauboussin was halfhearted about the project, but when he considered that the presence of a young girl in this endurance and distance test was bound to attract attention to the machine she was piloting, he asked to meet her.

As a result of this interview, the constructor was pleased with the exceptional personality of Hélène Boucher.
And he agreed to let her have one of his machines, a nice little plane, brandnew, with a 60 HP engine and painted in colours of her choice : blue and silver. The contest was held July 2, 1933.

The 12 hours of Angers consisted of flying from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the evening at a speed as steady as possible a circuit with four turns. Hélène Boucher made a race surprising by its regularity and smoothness which earned her the triomphant acclaim of the crowd. While the leader of the Mauboussin team accumulated 1650 km, Hélène came in second with 1645,864 km. Her performance was quite exceptional given the short time she had been training on this small plane. The newspapers published a photo of hers, she was interviewed, she made it to the news bulletins and the cinema screens. One month later, August 21, 1933 Hélène challenged the world record altitude for small planes. With her 60 HP, she'll make it to 5900 meters, breaking the previous record of the American May Hailip.

The small 60 Hp Mauboussin plane during the 12 hours of angers - Illustration : Paul Lengellé