History of aviation – October 10, 1924. It is in the sky of the Villacoublay aerodrome that, on this Friday, October 10, 1924, the new altitude record at the controls of an airplane will be established, on a world scale. A performance to be credited to Jean Callizo, the French aviator having managed to push his aircraft to a height of more than 12,000 meters.
Its record for this day is more precisely 12,066 meters above sea level. With this feat, the French pilot dethrones his counterpart Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, who was the record holder in the discipline until then thanks to a flight at a height of 11,145 meters carried out in Paris with a Nieuport Delage biplane, on October 30, 1923 Jean Callizo, for his part, piloted a Gourdou-Leseurre GL 40 monoplane on this occasion, with a Hispano-Suiza engine capable of developing 300 horsepower.
Jean Callizo will record several exploits between the years 1924 and 1927, but unfortunately, we will end up realizing that he is not a great record holder since his records were very poorly acquired, the latter having tampered with his barograph to become the holder… He will thus lose his titles after being unmasked.
