Henri Lachambre (30 December 1846,

Vagney Vagney () is a Communes of France, commune in the Vosges (department), Vosges Departments of France, department in Grand Est in northeastern France. See also *Communes of the Vosges department References External links Official site
C ...

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...

– 12 June 1904) was a French manufacturer of

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...

s. His factory was in the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

suburb Vaugirard. He also participated in ballooning himself carried out 500 ascents. Lachambre supplied balloons to both the US Signal Corps and the ill-fated arctic mission of S. A. Andrée in 1897. He also worked with the Brazilian

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot a ...

pioneer

Alberto Santos-Dumont Alberto Santos-Dumont ( Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavie ...

, taking him for his first balloon ascent and going on to construct his first balloon in 1898 and later the envelopes for his dirigibles. Together with his nephew Alexis Machuron Lachambre wrote a book about Andrée's expedition, ''Au pôle nord en ballon'' (Imprimerie Nilsson, 1897, 250 pages), which was quickly translated into Swedish, English, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Polish.

Notes

# Parkinson, R. J. (1960) "United States Signal Corps Balloons, 1871-1902" in ''Military Affairs'' 1846 births 1904 deaths People from Vosges (department) Aviation pioneers Members of the Early Birds of Aviation French aerospace engineers French aviators French balloonists {{France-business-bio-stub