Hubert Le Blon

Hubert Le Blon (21 March 1874 – 2 April 1910) was a French automobilist and pioneer aviator. He drove a steam-powered Gardner-Serpollet motorcar in the early 1900s, and then switched to Hotchkiss for both the world's first Grand Prix at Le Mans in France and the inaugural Targa Florio in Sicily. At the Vanderbilt Cup races on Long Island he competed for the US driving a Thomas. on 21 March 1874.

Le Blon Frères of Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, manufactured "Le Blon" and "Lynx" voiturettes from 1898 until possibly 1900.

Sporting career The 1906 Vanderbilt Cup at Long Island. Hubert Le Blon in an oversteering Thomas, the first car to start, encounters a dog.

Le Blon raced a Gardner-Serpollet steam car and set several speed records over a five-year period. ).

In the 1902 Paris Grand Prix (or Paris-Arras-Paris (This race is sometimes known by its post-facto rename of VIII Grand Prix de l'A.C.F.)

In 1905 he was hired to race French Hotchkiss and Panhard cars, and in several races his wife acted as his riding mechanic.

In 1907 he drove a De Luca-Daimler in the 2nd Targa Florio, finishing 20th, 1 hour 13 minutes after the winner Felice Nazzaro. On 2 July he was badly injured when he crashed his Panhard on the 4th lap of the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France at Dieppe. This led to a long period of convalescence.

Aviation 1910 Humber monoplane (Le Blon Type) - designed by Hubert Le Blon. Exhibited at the 1910 Olympia Aero Exhibition.

By 1909, like many other racers of the era, Le Blon became fascinated by aviation. He enrolled at the pilot training school of pioneering French aviator Léon Delagrange, learning to fly the Bleriot XI monoplane. Delagrange died three months before Le Blon, in an accident similar to the one that would kill Le Blon.

In 1909 Le Blon competed at the Spa aviation meeting in September–October before travelling to Doncaster, England, where he was the "first aviator to take-off at the first ever Air Show in Great Britain", held at the venue of the St. Leger Stakes. He rapidly became "as well known as Bleriot" for his skilled, daring and courageous flying, winning the Bradford Cup for the fastest ten laps of the course in his Blériot monoplane. He further endeared himself to the public on 25 October when he after taking off in very strong winds was hurled at the crowds by a strong gust, but manoeuvred to skim over the crowd, stall and then crash-land in a crowd-free area.

Death Madame Motan Le Blon - Wife and riding mechanic of Hubert Le Blon.

Le Blon drowned in a crash landing into the sea on 2 April 1910 while flying in stormy weather at Ondarreta Beach, San Sebastián, Spain, where he had been performing exhibition flights since 27 March. He was reportedly circling the Royal Palace of Miramar at about 140 feet when the Anzani engine failed; as he attempted to glide back to land, a wing's wire "stay" snapped whereupon the plane flipped and crashed into the sea upside down,

According to official documents the cause of death was "drowning" although his body was injured in the impact. The official cause of the crash was attributed to "fracture of one of the wing stay wires when running into a gust of wind".

At his funeral in San Sebastián the streets were lined with troops, shops were closed, and thousands followed his coffin to the railway station where it was transported to Paris.

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