Pioneer of French Civil Aviation
After World War I, Commandant Saconney became President of the Commission for the Application of Meteorology to Aerial Navigation, which later became the International Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology. This Commission provided guidance and coordination to the International Aeronautical Meteorology. This commission was part of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), the predecessor of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which was established in 1919. At that time, he was reckoned to be the authority in his field.
Then he was in charge of organising French civil aviation. Between 1919 and 1922, Colonel Saconney was the director of the civil aviation (see in this respect "Le Plan Saconney" . In a report from the National Advisory Committee for aeronautics, entitled “commercial aviation in France” (1922), it was said that the first step of the creation of the commercial aviation in France was realised by Colonel Saconney. The report states that between 1919 to 1922, the French commercial aviation acquired its first experience and its supremacy by setting permanent air routes between Paris-London, Paris-Brussels, Paris-Strasbourg-Prague-Warsaw, Paris-Geneva, Bordeaux-Toulouse-Montpellier, Nimes-Marseilles, Toulouse-Casablanca and Bayonne-Bilbao. According to General Nudant, Saconney was the architect of the French military and civil aviation. Further, he launched the creation of different airports including the Aéroport de Marseille on the Étang de Berre ](see Louis François, L'aéroport de Marseille-Marignane, « Les Études rhodaniennes », 1929, vol. V, 5-1, p. 163).
In 1922, he rejoined the army and became a member of the Council of the French Air Force and went up in the military hierarchy.
Saconney inaugurated in 1926, with the Mayor of Dijon, the first air-lighthouse, specially designed for air navigation. sited on the Mont Afrique ((fr)).
Saconney died in Dijon on 14 July 1935 leaving behind him two sons and one daughter.
Read more about this topic: Jacques Theodore Saconney
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