Charles Renard, a French military engineer and inventor, aeronaut and aviation pioneer, became director of the Central Establishment of Military Ballooning at Chalais-Meudon in 1877. It was the first laboratory for aeronautical testing in the world. In 1879, he established Hangar Y for building and storing balloons and dirigibles. On August 9, 1884 at 4 p.m., one year after the Tissandier brothers flew their airship over Boulogne, Renard’s own dirigible “La France” rose into the air over Meudon. The cigar-shaped airship measured 52.4 meters long, with a diameter of 8.4 meters and a volume of 1,864 cubic meters, all propelled by an electric 8-horsepower engine. On board were Charles Renard and the infantry captain Arthur Krebs. They launched the dirigible on an easterly wind, first against the wind and then across it. In these conditions, the airship traveled 7.6 kilometers in 23 minutes, before landing softly in a relatively small forested space. It was the first time that an aerial device had returned to its point of departure. And it was this flight that showed the general public that the airways were wide open for navigation.
