Spa, Belgium, September 20th - October 5th, 1909
Spa 1909: Defying the Ardennes weather
The little town Spa in the Liège province of the
Belgian Ardennes is famous since Roman times for its
healthy iron-rich water, in fact so famous that its name
has become the general term for water therapy
installations. In 1909 the town had around 8,000
inhabitants, but some 25,000 visitors came each year to
drink water, gamble at the casino and enjoy themselves.
The first ideas of an aviation contest in Spa were
launched already in March 1908. A committee was
established and a three-day meeting in July 1908 was
planned. A price fund of 75,000 francs was promised. In
June 1908 Henry Farman was consulted about the airfield,
and he found the proposed site, the horse race course at
La Sauvenière, too restricted. He recommended building a
new field further away from the town. The meeting was
re-scheduled to start in mid-August, but in the end it
came to nothing. In early August the Belgian Aéro-Club
informed the committee that it hadn't received even a
single entry to the competitions.
The "Aéro Club de Liège-Spa" was formed in late
1908, and soon revived the ideas and started planning a
two-week meeting. The club also took help from Frantz
Reichel, the aviation reporter of "Le Figaro",
who had many contacts in flying circles. After some
rescheduling, a date in the end of September was decided,
and this time it would actually happen.
Four foreign flyers were contracted. Leon Delagrange
would bring two Blériots for himself and his newly
recruited pilot Hubert Le Blon, and a Voisin, which in
the end would only leave its hangar for a couple of
tests. Louis Paulhan would bring his Voisin "Octavie
No 3" and Roger Sommer his Farman. In addition to
these well-known names the Belgian Druet brothers would
bring his biplane and Comte de la Vaulx would have his
airship "Zodiac III" ready for flights during
the second week of the meeting. Romanian inventor Henri
Coanda had brought a glider, which was to take off from a
wheeled trolley pulled by a weight dropped from a pylon
similar to that used by the Wright brothers. Inventor
Joseph Spoo from nearby Ster-Francorchamps, also known as
"Spoo-Naert", would display his
fourteen-horsepower, eight-wing ornithopter. A tethered
balloon, the "Mallet" of M. Hervieux, would
make flights. There would also be kite-flying contests,
offering prices of 10 to 40 francs for fastest climb,
longest line paid out and heaviest weight carried.
The pilots received a daily salary of 1,000 francs, which
would cover all expenses. This represented half of the
162,000 francs costs for staging the meeting. Five
contests were announced, for endurance, distance, speed,
altitude and quickest take-off. No prize money was
offered, but the winners of the different events would
get trophies.
The installations were inspired by the recent Reims
meeting and left little to be desired. The airfield was
built at Malchamps, on the uncultivated plateau between
Spa and Francorchamps, some five kilometres from the
Spa-Francorchamps circuit where the Belgian Formula One
Grand Prix is held. A four-pylon 2-kilometre course was
marked up. Hangars, grandstands, a buffet, kiosks, a
signal mast and a result board were built, and large
spectator areas were cleared. A private telephone line
connected the airfield with the Casino of Spa, and flags
indicating the flying conditions were hoisted not only at
several places in Spa, but also in Brussels, Liège and
Verviers. Law and order would be ensured by 200
gendarmes, two squadrons of lancers and a company of
bicycle infantry. The railway companies organized special
trains from several major Belgian towns.
In the middle of September "Flight" announced
that the Aero Club of Belgium had issued a notice that
the Spa meeting was not authorized by them, and that any
participants would be disqualified for all international
events. In the end nobody got disqualified, so the
organizers apparently managed to make peace with the Aero
Club, but this was only the first time that sanctioning
conflicts would affect an aviation meeting.
Monday 20 September
Anybody who follows Formula One racing knows that weather
in the Spa area is at best unpredictable, so it is
perhaps no surprise that the first day's flying was
prevented by wind and rain. The flyers were anyway busy
assembling their planes, and even though the visitors had
paid a high price to get in, 20 francs for a seat in the
grandstands and 1 franc in the public enclosures, they
appeared to be pleased with seeing real airplanes and
following the action in the hangars.
Tuesday 21 September
The rain fell in torrents during the night and into the
second day and despite being covered with fir branches
and ash, the roads around the airfield were getting very
difficult to use.
Wednesday 22 September
The weather was much better and the wind was down to 5-7
m/s, so at eleven o'clock the white flag was hoisted.
The meeting was inaugurated by Princess Clementine,
"exquisitely dressed in pink and wearing a beautiful
coat", in the presence of the organizing committee
and several local dignitaries. She went from hangar to
hangar, visiting the flyers and having "charming
words" for everybody. Towards the end of the third
day there was finally some flying: Around sunset
Delagrange made a short flight, but he had spark-plug
problems and had to land after only 700 metres,
frightening a flock of grouse as he came down on the
spongy peat ground. The evening brought the disturbing
news that Ferdinand Ferber had been killed in his Voisin
at Boulogne. He was the second pilot to die in an air
accident, and it happened less than two weeks after
Eugène Lefebvre's fatal accident at Port-Aviation.
Thursday 23 September
The final planes, Delagrange's Voisin and his second
Blériot, arrived during the morning after being released
by the Belgian customs. The princess made another visit
in the afternoon, when the weather was better. Delagrange
was the hero of the day, making four splendid flights,
the longest for three laps. During the afternoon there
was another heavy rain shower. After trying several times
to take off from the soft airfield Sommer finally made a
flight at around six o'clock, when the rain had
stopped, but for some reason he didn't turn at the
far end of the course and finally landed some three
kilometres from his hangar. He landed in a marsh and it
took his crew until half past nine in the evening to get
the machine back to the hangar, some of them wet above
the knees. Paulhan also made a short flight, but was
forced down after 250 meters, putting the plane on its
nose without causing any damage. The crash was blamed on
faulty rigging of the tail. Towards the late afternoon
the rain returned again.
Friday 24 September
The sky was overcast during the morning and remained
showery and unstable during the afternoon, but some
flying was still possible towards the end of the day. The
unlucky Paulhan, by now completely frustrated by the poor
ground conditions, made another short hop, which resulted
in heavy landing and a broken propeller. Delagrange flew
twice for a total of four laps before being forced down
when his engine suddenly stopped. His dramatic landing
caused some concern among the spectators, but no damage
was done. Sommer flew five laps during the late
afternoon. Le Blon, who was still under instruction from
Delagrange and had only made two straight-line hops
before, flew two laps. Towards the evening the wind and
rain returned.
Saturday 25 September
On this day all the factories of the region were closed
in order to give their employees that chance to watch the
flying, and miraculously the day started with fine
weather and low winds. Despite the muddy ground
Delagrange and Sommer made several flights, totalling
five laps each. Delagrange improved Sommer's previous
best lap time by almost four seconds, posting a best of
1:44.6. He also took the lead in the altitude completion
by reaching 35 meters.
Paulhan's troubles continued. His Voisin didn't
have the advantage of the double wheels of Sommer's
Farman or the light weight of Delagrange's Blériots,
so it suffered badly from the soft ground. On top of that
his engine didn't run well and it was suspected that
it had been damaged when he landed in the sea at Ostend
before the meeting.
Sunday 26 September
The rain had started again on the evening before and even
though the weather looked promising during the morning it
soon got worse again. 230 gendarmes struggled to control
over 10,000 spectators who were frustrated by waiting for
hours. Sommer then crashed his plane when some people got
in his way, forcing him to land suddenly. The wheels
stuck in the soft ground and the plane was completely
wrecked when it nosed over.
Delagrange crashed in a similar way after a flight of
four laps, his second of the day. A sudden rain shower
forced him to land quickly, and the wheels got stuck in a
muddy patch after the landing. His plane stood on its
nose and the propeller and some wing rigging were broken.
Thankfully neither of the pilots was injured. Delagrange
managed to get out his plane unaided and was carried on
the shoulders of enthusiastic fans to his hangar, where
he was met by princess Clémentine.
Monday 27 September
If was decided to postpone the meeting while a 150 by 15
metre strip of the by now completely waterlogged airfield
was covered with planks in order to make it possible to
start. There was no flying, but the crews had lots to do
repairing the planes after the accidents. Sommer's
plane turned out to be less damaged than first thought.
He had the wing of his Farman sent to Liège, where it
could be repaired. Delagrange's crew also assembled
his old Voisin, now reportedly equipped with a Mutel
engine. The Druet brothers tried to finish preparing
their plane, which had been damaged during the transport
to the airfield. The day was finished by a banquet for
the flyers.
Tuesday 28 September
The Tuesday started with a kite-flying contest, which
ended in chaos when the wind suddenly dropped and around
a dozen of competitors had to quickly wind down the
hundreds of metres of wire holding their kites. The wires
of many competitors were so tangled that they had to be
weighed instead of measured. The winner was a M. Droeven,
who had paid out 1,025 metres of wire.
Le Blon continued his progress by flying fourteen laps at
around four o'clock. The flight, officially measured
to 21.984 kilometres covered in 23:09.6, was the longest
of the meeting. The other pilots didn't achieve much,
despite the sunny weather, which attracted more than
25,000 spectators. Delagrange had engine problems and
only flew a single lap.
Paulhan announced that because of the unsatisfactory
state of the field he would not make any further flights
during the meeting. His partner Henri Brégi stated that
the plane was out of trim since it had had a replacement
tail installed after the Ostend ditching. In order to
achieve proper rigging the unbalanced plane had to be
test-flown, and this was impossible to do without a good
airfield. After making an agreement with the organizers
Paulhan left Spa for Paris during the Tuesday night. The
agreement doesn't appear to have been all that
friendly. M. Lambert, president of the committee, made an
official statement that Paulhan "had promised to
come back as soon as possible with another machine. We
are waiting for him. Will he come back? That's his
business. If he doesn't come back we will keep the
25,000 francs cheque that we promised him for
flying". Paulhan didn't come back. He only
spent some hours in Paris, before going to the Cologne
meeting, which was to open on September 30th.
Count van der Burch, the vice president of the organizing
committee, declared that he had decided to buy
Delagrange's plane and start flying himself. In the
darkness of the evening Coanda finished building the
launching-pylon for his glider. The first crates
containing the "Zodiac III" arrived during the
day, but any flights before the weekend seemed unlikely.
Sommer declared that he would give up flying after the
meeting. He stated that the deaths of Lefebvre and Ferber
had deeply impressed his friends and family, who had
convinced him to give up this sport, which had already
created so many martyrs. In the future he would focus on
the family's felt manufacturing business, which had
suffered from his flying activities. He had sold his
plane to Belgians Daniel Kinet and Marcel Grammont
earlier during the meeting.
Wednesday 29 September
At six o'clock in the morning Coanda made a first
effort to fly his glider, but the weight couldn't
give the plane enough speed and it simply dropped off its
trolley, throwing off the pilot and breaking some rigging
wires. The launching apparatus didn't look practical.
The plane didn't sit well on its trolley and the
pylon didn't inspire confidence, with the weight
falling uncontrolled and risking to hit the structure.
Later in the morning the bad weather returned, so flying
was impossible until four o'clock, when Delagrange
made two flights, each of two laps. He then gathered the
timekeepers in order to try for the record for the
shortest take-off. On his second attempt he managed to
lift off in 49.4 meters, thus beating Alberto
Santos-Dumont's previous record, set in his new
Demoiselle, by 14 meters. He flew another lap, to the
ovations of the spectators, before the rain forced him
down again. During the day Delagrange's mechanic
Georges Prévoteau left Spa with one of the Blériots in
order to prepare for Delagrange's participation in
the meeting at Cologne.
Thursday 30 September
The Belgian Foreign Minister Julien Davignon and Minister
of War General Hellebaut visited the airfield. When the
wind calmed down Delagrange flew two laps and Le Blon
three. Delagrange also tried to beat his take-off record
from the previous day, but only managed 51 metres.
Friday 1 October
Violent winds made flights impossible. The tarpaulins
that covered the big hangar for the airship "Zodiac
III" threatened to fly away, and the fire brigade
and all other available hands were required to hold down
the cables that attached them.
Saturday 2 October
Sommer had finally repaired his Farman and made two fine
flights of totally fifteen laps. Delagrange and Le Blon
made short flights in their Blériots. Delagrange also
rolled out his old Voisin, which had finally received the
new propeller that had gone missing on the Belgian
railways, but a wheel broke and the right wing touched
the ground, breaking the vertical surface at the wing
tip. The Druet brothers tried to make a flight in their
biplane, but failed. Count de la Vaulx finally made a
flight in "Zodiac III", passing the German
border, some twenty kilometres away. Expectations were
high for the final Sunday, when the final results of the
contests would be decided.
Sunday 3 October
However, the Ardennes weather struck again on the Sunday.
The rain kept falling and the wind threatened the
hangars. Count de la Vaulx had to deflate his airship, a
loss of hydrogen worth 1,400 francs. Even though they had
been given access to the hangar area in order to be able
to see the machines from close, the increasingly
frustrated crowds manifested their displeasure and some
incidents occurred. In the evening a dinner was held for
the flyers. During the night between Sunday and Monday
the wind got even worse and brought down the hangars of
"Zodiac III". On the following night the hangar
of the Spoo-Naert ornithoptre also collapsed.
This was the end of the meeting. Delagrange had won the
prizes for total flying time and speed, while Le Blon won
the prize for the longest non-stop flight.
Conclusion
The Spa meeting was unanimously reported as
well-organized, but the few flyers at the
weather-troubled meeting didn't achieve anything of
greater importance and it appears that the focus on
competitive activities was not very strong. Some of the
press blamed it on the fact that flyers were salaried and
did not receive any prize money. The total time flown
during the two weeks was less than three hours. The
"Zodiac III" only made one seventeen-minute
flight, which must have been a big disappointment for the
organizers who had paid the enormous sum of 30,000 francs
for its participation. The tethered balloon never flew.
On the other hand, it was calculated that the event had
attracted around 100,000 visitors to the
Spa-Francorchamps area.
The big star of the meeting was Delagrange, of whom
Frantz Reichel of "Le Figaro" lyrically wrote:
"Delagrange is in admirable form. He is
marvellously master of his monoplane, which he throws
over the sky with a remarkable security, authority and
style. His flight is light, fast, elegant and so
purposeful that it is like a bird jumping into space. He
does not take off gradually, he takes to the air in one
magnificent movement" … "Delagrange leaped into
the air, wings spread, like a dragonfly, hovering in the
splendid sky in a flight of rare
beauty"
Back to the top of
the page