photo by Jorge Castillo/ castlerockstampsĬommercial aviation was a growth industry during this period so Latécoère faced stiff competition when negotiating air routes and mail contracts with various governments.
Marcelle Bouilloux-Lafont, the Brazillian-based French businessman who bought controlling interest in the Lignes Aériennes Latécoère renamed the venture la Compagnie Général Aéropostale but retained Latécoère’s planes and the celebrated pilots like Mermoz and his friend, Antoine de Saint Exupéry who were instrumental in establishing commercial air routes in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. While Georges Latécoère had sold 93% of his company in 1927, his dream of connecting Europe, Africa, and Latin America with airmail routes had finally come true. Bust of Antoine de Saint Exupéry, celebrated author of Le Petit Prince in the Jean Mermoz Museum, Saint Louis, Senegal Where transatlantic mail service had once required several weeks for delivery by steam ships, Aéropostale pilots flying Laté 28 craft were able to cut delivery times to four days. The plane’s 12 cylinder Hispano-Suiza engine gave it a maximum cruising speed of 222 kilometers per hour and a range of 4,685 km – more than four times the distance the Breuget XIVs could travel. Mermoz made this flight in a Latécoère 28-3 seaplane christened Comte de la Vaulx. Model of the Latécoère 28 in the Jean Mermoz Museum, Saint Louis, Senegal Then in 1930, only three years after Charles Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, Mermoz extended the “spirit of Saint Louis” in a 21-hour flight linking Saint-Louis, Senegal and Natal, Brazil. The following year while testing routes over the Andes, he improvised a take off after a forced landing in the mountains by deftly steering his plane like a bobsled as it coasted down three descending peaks until it gained enough speed to remain airborne. In 1926, he crashed in the Mauritanian desert and was captured and held for ransom by nomadic tribesmen. Mermoz, who once quipped that dying in bed would be an accident, cut a colorful figure in the towns along the Toulouse – Saint Louis route. He spent the last night of his life in room 19. Jean Mermoz and his fellow pilots stayed at the Hotel de la Poste during layovers in Saint Louis, Senegal. The open cockpits further subjected pilots to temperature extremes during flights that stretched the Breuget’s range of 900 kilometers to the limit. Although Breuget XIVs equipped with radios and cameras gave good service during the war as reconnaissance planes, the models Mermoz and his colleagues flew as they pushed the airmail service from Barcelona to Casablanca and then on to Dakar lacked most navigational instruments considered standard today. These features enabled it to perform well as a bomber. It had a maximum cruising speed of 150 kilometers per hour at altitudes up to 6,000 meters. With a frame of lightweight aluminum tubing, the Breuget XIV was fast, agile, and sturdy. Model of the Breuget XIV in the Jean Mermoz Museum, Saint Louis, Senegal Mermoz started as a mechanic but was soon promoted to pilot, braving the Pyrenees in Breuget XIV bi-planes that had been demobilized after WWI. After his discharge, he struggled to find work before landing a position with George Latécoère’s airmail service in 1924. He joined the army in 1920 where he demonstrated keen aptitude as a pilot despite his distaste for army discipline. Mermoz was born in Aubenton, France in 1901. Although the exploits of Jean Mermoz and other Aéropostale aviators rank with those of the Wright brothers or Charles Lindberg, I had never heard of these cockpit cowboys who pioneered an airborne equivalent of the Pony Express. When I left Atlanta for Senegal on an Air France flight operated by Delta Air Lines, I thought that Aéropostale was just the name of a retail outlet.
Bust of Jean Mermoz in the Jean Mermoz Museum, Saint Louis, Senegal
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