SUSANA JONES: 'VOLE PETITE AILE, CHANGE D'UNIVERS'

George Cayley's Monoplane Glider

I'm Susana Jones. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called The History of Aviation. It was a picture of George Cayle's Monoplane Glider. Here is a copy of the picture...

Some months ago, I joined to The Jones family in the search of the lost dream. I have been living with them until today. I've just decided to follow my own path and do something that I really love: flying.

Yes, I'm a professional pilot who found her inspiration in the figures of Hélène Boucher and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I want to fly over these wonderful French lands, over the Loira's Castles, over Paris, over Britain, Alsace, the French Basque Country and cross Occitania and French Catalan Lands to arrive to Gulf of Lion, where I want to join my soul in that point where sky becomes heaven. 

Yes, I want to stay with my little prince and share as moments as I can with him because he's my rose and I want to see the heaven in his eyes.

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Susana Jones and her Little Prince

The Jones are going to continue their searching, knowing that the most important isn't what are you going to find when you arrive but all the experiences that you have lived while you were arriving.

This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared.

Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the Gulf of Lion. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.

Watch Vole English Version: Fly by Céline Dion

 Vole vole petite aile, ma douce, mon hirondelle.
Va t'en loin, va t'en sereine qu'ici rien ne te retienne.
Rejoins le ciel et l'éther, laisse-nous laisse la terre
quitte manteau de misère: Change d'univers. 

Céline Dion

Hélène Boucher

Hélène Boucher was the daughter of a Parisian architect; after an ordinary schooling she experienced flight at Orly and then became the first pupil at the flying school run by Henri Fabos at Mont-de-Marsan. She rapidly obtained her brevet (no. 182) aged 23, bought a de Havilland Gypsy Moth and learned to navigate and perform aerobatics. 

Her great ability was recognised by Michel Detroyat who advised her to focus on aerobatics, his own speciality. Their performances drew in crowds to flight shows, for example at Villacoublay, and her skills gained her public transport brevet in June 1932. After attending a few aviation meetings, she sold the Moth and bought an Avro Avian, planning a flight to the Far East; in the event she got as far as Damascus and returned via North Africa, limited by financial difficulties.

In 1933 she flew with Miss Jacob in the Angers 12-hour race in one of the lowest-powered machines there, a 45 kW Salmson-engined Mauboussin-Zodiac 17; completing 1,645 km at an average speed of 137 km/h and came 14th. They were the only female team competing and received the prize of 3,000 francs set aside for an all-women team as well as 3,000 francs for position. The following year, on a contract with the Caudron company and in a faster Caudron Rafale she competed again, coming second.

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Hélène Boucher, Cirrus (left) and Caudron (right)

During 1933 and 1934 she set several world records for women, set out below; exceptionally, she held the international, male or female, record for speed over 1,000 km in 1934. 

Most of these records were flown in Renault-powered Caudron aircraft, and in June 1934 the Renault company also took her temporarily under contract in order to promote their new Viva Grand Sport.

On 30 November 1934 she died aged 26 flying a Caudron C.430 Rafale near Versailles when the machine crashed into the woods of Guyancourt. Posthumously, she was immediately made a Knight of the Légion d'Honneur and was the first woman to lie in state at Les Invalides, where her funeral obsequies were held. She is buried in Yermenonville cemetery. Parts of the press and others held Detroyat to be responsible for her death, spurring a young, innocent girl to such a dangerous sport.

More information: Air Charter Service USA

After her death several memorials of different kinds were set up. A brand new, art-deco styled, Girls High School-Lycée Hélène Boucher built in 1935 in Paris was named after her as she was considered a model for future generations of modernistic, forward thinking girls.

There is a stone in the Guyancourt woods where the crash happened, a tomb monument at Yermenonville and various squares and street names remember her. 1935 saw the first running of a competition for female pilots, the Boucher Cup.

 Past the planets and the stars, leave this lonely world of ours,
escape the sorrow and the pain and fly again.

Your endless journey has begun, take your gentle happiness
far too beautiful for this. Cross over to the other shore.

Céline Dion