Mosquito Men by David Price

Author:David Price [Price, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800242319
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

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The town of Clermont-Ferrand, in the central French region of the Auvergne, was home to two facilities – the Michelin tyre factory and the Bréguet aircraft manufacturing works – that bore eloquent witness to the leading role France had played in the transport revolution of the early twentieth century. Two sons of the town, Edouard and André Michelin, had formed their tyre company here in 1889, and they soon captured a global market with their pneumatic tyres, targeted initially at the hugely profitable bicycle industry but later adapted for use in a new, four-wheeled vehicle, the motor car. The Michelin brothers also noted the status and potential of another new technology, the aeroplane. In 1911 they decided to stage their own air race, to draw not only the best aviators of the day, but the eyes of the entire world, to their tyre factory in Clermont-Ferrand. A prize of 100,000 francs would be awarded to the first aviators to fly from Paris to the summit of Puy de Dôme and circle Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral in less than six hours. The aircraft would need to carry two people – an early hint of the idea of passenger air travel.

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