A book that pays tribute to an annual event: the air race retracing the route of the Latécoère Line, whose first flight took place in 1918.
Already more than 2,000 pilots have participated since its inception, covering a round-trip distance of 10,000 kilometers and logging an almost incalculable number of dreamlike hours! These are the rough statistics for this air race, which sets off every year after summer from Toulouse to reach Saint-Louis, Senegal—following the legendary Latécoère route, flown by Guillaumet, Mermoz, Saint-Exupéry, and so many others whose stories continue to inspire dreams, more than a century later.
Author and aviator Martine Gay has also flown this route—ten times (covering 100,000 kilometers in the air)—and in these pages she recounts the adventures that any aviator setting out on this journey can expect to encounter over the countries they fly over: France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal—and then back again. And despite her ten round trips, it remains a one-of-a-kind experience, filled with human encounters, technical challenges to overcome, unpredictable weather to face, and much more.
In short, a true immersion into long-distance travel, filled with poetry and dreams for those who set out from the “Pink City” bound for Saint-Louis, Senegal—and fly over a desert that has never seemed so full of promise…
Book: “Le Compostelle des aviateurs – 100,000 km by Plane in the Footsteps of the Pioneers” by Martine Gay. Published by JPO. EAN: 9782373012187