François Coli , French pilot born the June 5th 1881 with Marseilles and dead in May 1927.
Biography
It engages in the infantry in 1914, but after two serious wounds, it is declared inapt for the combat and is made transfer in aviation. It finishes the war as a captain of flotilla, and is decorated with with ten quotations and officer the Military Cross of the Légion of honor, but it lost the right eye.
In 1919, it makes a success of the double crossing of the the Mediterranean on board its plane and beats the record of distance in straight line.
His/her friend Charles Nungesser, enthusiast of adventure and not involved since it was not registered with the Prix Orteig which offers 25.000 American dollars to which will cross the first the Atlantique in the plane, involves it in this formidable challenge as a navigator in 1927.
The plane used is a Levasseur PL8 biplane seaplane, prototype been driven by an engine out of W of 450 CV that Nungesser renames the White Bird .
The May 8th 1927, the two men fly away Le Bourget towards New York. To gain weight, it carry neither radio, nor lifeboat. They never arrive and they are said lost in the North Atlantic…
According to an investigation going back to 1980, the White Bird would have been crushed in a forest of Maine, in the North-East of the United States: a plausible assumption can be built, while referring to the instruments of the time, and while being based on a report/ratio of the US Air Force which would have located a white mass in these forests. Thus, they would have made a success of their bet.
Their bodies and their apparatus were never found. Research was organized. The ministry for the Grounds and Forêts dispatched even two Hydravion S of Canadian Airways the Roberval one to patrol in the Détroit of Beautiful-Isle. But, one of the apparatuses broke on a rock after having to land on sea urgently in the swell and the ices.
A few days later, the May 21st 1927, American Charles Lindbergh makes a success of the crossing New York - Paris on board the famous Spirit off Saint Louis and gained the Orteig price.
See too
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