Georges Besançon (1866–1934) founded and edited the aeronautical journal ''

L'Aérophile ''L’Aérophile'' ("The Aerophile") was a French aviation magazine published from 1893 to 1947. It has been described as "the leading aeronautical journal of the world" around 1910. History and contents ''L’Aérophile'' was founded and ru ...

''. Besançon was a balloonist ("aeronaut") and journalist. Besançon helped train the later-celebrated balloonist Salomon Andrée, probably in the late 1880s. In 1892, Besançon and scientist

Gustave Hermite Gustave Hermite (11 June 1863 – 9 November 1914) was a French aeronaut and physicist, pioneer with Georges Besançon of the weather balloon. He was the nephew of Charles Hermite, one of the fathers of modern mathematical analysis. Biography Gu ...

sent instruments on fabric or paper balloons into the upper atmosphere for meteorological research."Early Scientific Balloons" at avstop.com
/ref> In 1901, Hermite and Besançon sent up small instrumented rubber balloons that were designed to expand until at a high altitude they would burst. Then their instruments would descend by parachute. Besançon founded the aeronautical periodical ''

'' in 1893, and remained its director until at least 1910.''L'Aérophile'', Jan 1, 1910 cover at archive.org scanned from Smithsonian Institution Library
/ref> There he covered and reported on the era in which the airplane was invented and an international airplane industry arose.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Besancon, Georges History of aviation French balloonists French journalists 1866 births 1934 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French male non-fiction writers Atmospheric sounding