A recent post from my WORLD WAR ONE collection.

A recent post from my WORLD WAR ONE collection. The first fighter ace in history Adolphe Pegoud was a test pilot for aircraft designer Louis Bleriot. He pushed aircraft to the limits and instructed many pilots.

From Wikipedia: “On 31 August 1915, Pégoud was shot down and killed by one of his pre-war German students, Unteroffizier Walter Kandulski,[1] while intercepting a German reconnaissance aircraft. He was 26 years old. The same German crew later dropped a funeral wreath behind the French lines. A false report stated that two weeks later Kandulski was shot down by the French pilot Roger Ronserail. In fact Kandulski survived the war.[5]”

Originally shared by Pete Panozzo

FRENCH ACE ADOLPHE PEGOUD

From Wikipedia: Adolphe Célestin Pégoud (13 June 1889 – 31 August 1915) was a French aviator and flight instructor who became the first fighter ace in history during World War I.

Adolphe Célestin Pégoud was born 13 June 1889 in Montferrat, France.[1] Pégoud served in the French Army from 1907 to 1913. Discharged on 13 February 1913, he immediately began flying, and earned his pilot’s certificate 1 March 1913. Using a sacrifice aircraft, Pégoud was the first pilot to make a parachute[2] jump from an airplane. During the first jump, observing the unexpected path of the plane and particularly a loop-like trajectory, he was convinced he could reproduce and control the same in flight. After landing, Pégoud addressed reporters: “I’ve seen him, alone, looping the loop. So you see that this is possible. Also, I will try!”

As a test pilot for Louis Blériot, he devoted himself to this goal with a Blériot model XI monoplane in a series of test flights exploring the limits of airplane maneuvers. Having modified his airplane, and after a realistic “head down” ground training, he then flew the first inverted flight on 1 September 1913.

Then, on 21 September he flew a loop,[3] believing it to be the world’s first. Pégoud’s feat was consequently widely publicized and believed by many to be the first loop, although Pyotr Nesterov, a Russian army pilot, had already flown the first loop on 9 September 1913, 12 days earlier in a Nieuport IV monoplane at an army airfield near Kiev. Soon after his feat, Pégoud was invited by the Czar of Russia to perform in Moscow a series of demonstrations followed by student training.

Pégoud became a popular instructor of French and other European fledgling pilots.

Photo link: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%95hu%C3%A4ss