Georges Madon

Georges Félix Madon (28 July 1892 – 11 November 1924) was the fourth ranked French ace pilot of the First World War.

He originally flew reconnaissance and night-time bombing missions while assigned to fly prewar Bleriots with Escadrille (squadron) BL30.

Certainly it saved his life, when on 30 October 1914, his engine was destroyed by a direct hit from 77 mm cannon fire.

It took exceptional skill to coax the Bleriot to a dead stick landing against the wind within French lines.

[2] In April 1915, thrown off course by heavy fog, Madon flew into Swiss air space while qualifying upon a new 80 horsepower (60 kW) Farman, and was interned for several months.

As part of Madon's new role, he mentored other pilots who became aces because of his tutelage; among these were Andre Martenot de Cordou, Hector Garaud, and American David Putnam.

[1] In an era when fighter aces' careers were commonly measured in months, he had had a two-year string of victories.

The Simplex monoplane had a 320 horsepower (240 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine crammed into a short fuselage; pilot view was seriously limited by a rearward seating behind a barrel radiator.

[6] Precisely six years after Armistice Day, at age 32, Madon was killed in his native Tunisia preparing for a tribute to fellow airman Roland Garros.

His aircraft suffered mechanical trouble, and he gallantly crashed it into the roof of a villa rather than hit spectators.

Confirmation of any sizable number of these might raise him to a score even greater than that of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron himself.

Also winner in the ordinary course of committed countless battles without concern of many opponents, or the removal of our lines, never reached even a single bullet through the devastating speed of his attacks, the precision of his maneuvers, the infallibility of his shot, wounded sometimes in terrible falls, leads tirelessly by his splendid example, the squadron under his command and it shows every day with new exploits.

Madon leaning against a Spad