“You have let me witness the most astonishing spectacle I have ever seen,” was her comment to Wilbur Wright.
On that same October 8, Griffith Brewer, making his second visit to Le Mans, won the distinction of being the first Englishman ever to fly. He was followed almost immediately by three other British Aeronautical Society members, C. S. Rolls, F. H. Butler, and Major Baden-Powell.
One of the Englishmen remarked: “How decent it is of Wilbur Wright never to accept a fee for any of these flights, when there are scores of persons who would gladly pay hundreds of pounds for the privilege.”
Wilbur continued until the end of the year to take up passengers at Auvours. Among them, on October 10, was M. Painlevé, of the French Institute. As they were taking off, M. Painlevé gaily waved his hand at the crowd and in so doing accidentally pulled a rope overhead that Wilbur used for stopping the engine. After another start, the flight lasted one hour, nine minutes, forty-five seconds, and covered forty-six miles, a world record for both duration and distance for an airplane carrying two persons. Two other women besides Mrs. Berg had short flights—Mesdames Léon Bollée and Lazare Weiller. A passenger on October 24 was Dr. Pirelli, leading tire manufacturer in Italy. Later, in November, F. S. Lahm, one of the first in Europe to believe the Wrights had flown, had his first ride in a plane. Among the distinguished people who made passenger flights were two destined to die by assassins’ bullets: Paul Doumer, member of the French parliament, afterward President of France; and Louis Barthou, Minister of Public Works and Aerial Communications, afterward Premier.
Under the terms of the contract between the Wrights and the newly formed French company, one of the Wright brothers was to train three pilots. Wilbur began this training at Auvours. The students were Count Charles de Lambert, Paul Tissandier, and Captain Lucas de Girardville. Both Tissandier and de Lambert had made flights as passengers on September 28, but did not begin their training until later. Captain Lucas de Girardville went up as a passenger for the first time on October 12. The first to receive a lesson at piloting was Count de Lambert on October 28.
The Aéro Club of France had offered a prize of 2,500 francs for an altitude of twenty-five meters. But there was a “catch” to that offer. A little clique in the Aéro Club, a bit over-chauvinistic, wanted a native experimenter to win, and that was why the altitude to be attained was fairly low. It was stipulated that anyone competing for the prize must start without use of derrick or catapult. The French experimenters had wheels on their machines and could get as long a start as necessary before leaving the ground. But the Wright machine, designed for the rough, sandy ground at Kitty Hawk, and the somewhat bumpy Huffman field, still had skids instead of wheels. Thus the rules for the contest seemed to be aimed to prevent Wilbur Wright from winning the prize. Members of the Aéro Club of the Sarthe thought their compatriots in the Aéro Club of France were being unsportsmanlike, and they offered a prize of 1,000 francs for an altitude record of thirty meters. Wilbur won it on November 13. In doing so he went three times as high as required, reaching an altitude of ninety meters. Then Wilbur decided that he might as well win the prize of the Aéro Club of France, and do so on their own terms. He arranged for a longer starting track than usual, and, five days after taking the prize for thirty meters, he started without the use of derrick or catapult and won the prize for twenty-five meters. To the delight of his friends in the Aéro Club of the Sarthe, he purposely did not throw in much altitude for good measure and went only high enough to clear safely the captive balloon that showed the height required.
On December 16, Wilbur astounded the spectators by shutting off the motor at an altitude of about 200 feet and volplaning slowly down. And on December 18, he flew for 1 hour 54 minutes 53.4 seconds. Later that same day he won another prize offered by the Aéro Club of the Sarthe for an altitude of a hundred meters. Wilbur went ten meters higher than required. This was a new world’s record for altitude. Then on December 31, the last day he ever flew at Auvours, he made what was then an almost incredible record of staying continuously in the air 2 hours 20 minutes 23.2 seconds. For this feat he won the Michelin award of $4,000, or 20,000 francs.
As the weather at Le Mans was no longer ideal for flying, it was necessary to seek a warmer climate, and at the suggestion of Paul Tissandier, Wilbur decided to go to Pau, a beautiful winter resort city of 35,000, at the edge of the Pyrenees. The city of Pau provided a field and a hangar.[13]
At about the same time, Orville Wright, now rapidly recuperating from his injuries at Fort Myer, arrived in Paris with their sister, Katharine, for a reunion with Wilbur. Then Wilbur went on down to Pau, and his brother and sister joined him there a week or two later. En route to Pau, their train met with an accident near the town of Dax, in which two persons were killed. The Wrights escaped injury, but Orville was a bit startled for another reason. When the crash came, his mattress tipped up on one side at the same time that his watch, pocketbook and other articles slid off a stand or shelf beside the bed. His valuables thus got themselves hid beneath the mattress and, until he chanced to find them, it looked as if he had been robbed.
As at Le Mans, Wilbur lived at the hangar, where he had a French cook the hospitable Mayor de Lassence, of Pau, had selected. His brother and sister lived at the Hotel Gassion, not far from the famous old château where Henry IV was born, and within a short stroll from the Place near the center of the city that affords what Lamartine has called the finest land view in all the world. The Wrights were not long in discovering that life here should be ideal. Wilbur’s French cook proved to be competent enough at preparing regional and other choice dishes—though Katharine Wright did not think he had quite the best technique with a broom for keeping the quarters clean. A London newspaper photographer gave Orville a photograph of his sister demonstrating to that Frenchman how to handle a broom.