Émile Dubonnet (18 October 1883 - 4 October 1950) was a French

balloonist In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that ...

active from 1908 to 1913. He participated in the 1908, 1909, and 1911

Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning The Gordon Bennett Cup (or ) is the world's oldest gas balloon race, and is "regarded as the premier event of world balloon racing" according to the ''Los Angeles Times''. Referred to as the "Blue Ribbon" of aeronautics, the first race started fr ...

and was a member of the

Aéro-Club de France The Aéro-Club de France () is one of the oldest French aviators' associations still active. It was founded as the Aéro-Club on 20 October 1898 as a society 'to encourage aerial locomotion' by Ernest Archdeacon, Léon Serpollet, Henri de la ...

. He won the La Grande Medaille de

in 1912. He holds a

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

record from 1912-1913.

Biography

Dubonnet was born on 18 October 1883 in Paris to a winemaker. In 1910 he flew over

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in his Tellier brothers aircraft. He started from

Port-Aviation Port-Aviation was an airfield in the Communes of France, commune of Viry-Châtillon in Seine-et-Oise (now in Essonne), France. It operated as a popular air racing and aviation exhibition venue and hosted civilian flight schools from its opening in ...

("Juvisy Airfield") at

Viry-Châtillon Viry-Châtillon () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Population Inhabitants of Viry-Châtillon are also known as ''Castelvirois'' in French. Sports The town is home to the wome ...

and made a landing at

Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park that is the western half of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by the Em ...

. Dubonnet also helped form the first professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

league in France, the French Baseball Union, in 1912.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubonnet, Emile Members of the Aéro-Club de France 1883 births 1950 deaths French balloonists Balloon flight record holders French aviation record holders