In Pictures: 100+ Years of Aviation Week at the Paris Air Show

Aviation Week has sent reporters to every Paris Air Show since 1919, three years after the magazine was founded and a decade after the event debuted at the Grand Palais as the Paris Aeronautical Exposition. Here is a selection of 25 covers from the shows with their original captions.

After more than a decade of cost, schedule and technical challenges, the F-35 appears to have turned a corner. Lockheed Martin’s stealth fighter made its first aerial demonstrations at the Paris Air Show last week.

Bombardier’s CS300 test aircraft is shown at Le Bourget. Along with a CS100, the C Series aircraft made its Paris Air Show debut last week. 

Four major commercial aircraft are scheduled to make first flights in 2013.  From top to bottom are the Airbus A350; Bombardier C Series CS100; Boeing 787-9, the new stretched variant of the 787; and Mitsubishi Regional Jet. This year’s Paris Air Show will be a tale of two industries as rising demand for commercial aircraft contrasts sharply with slumping defense budgets in Europe and the U.S.

Eurocopter’s X3 makes its Paris Air Show debut. For Eurocopter, the X3 represents a potential forerunner to a generation of high-speed rotorcraft capable of replacing smaller regional aircraft. Other European helicopter makers also presented their visions for the future. And for commercial air transport manufacturers, overcast skies and daily downpours failed to dampen a surge in orders.

The first Paris Air Show, which took place in 1909 at the huge Grand Palais near the Champs-Elysees, drew about 380 exhibitors and more than 100,000 visitors. From that ambitious event 100 years ago, an industry was born, and the exposition evolved into what many aerospace professionals consider the premier global product and technology showcase.

The most visible star of the 2005 Paris Air Show was the Airbus A380, which flew every day. The mega-transport was the dominant presence at the show, although commitments for other aircraft types, from Boeing’s 737 to Airbus’ A350, were far more prevalent.

Breitling P-47 Thunderbolt and Mk9B Spitfire are in the foreground, with a Dassault Falcon Jet and Russian transport in the background, in this typical aircraft ramp view from the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget. Some 240 aircraft and helicopters were displayed, while 66 flew during the nine-day event. There were about 1,900 exhibitors this year.

Antonov An-74TK combi, shown in the West for the first time at the Paris Air Show, reflects signs of a modest upturn in the Ukrainian and Russian commercial transport industries. The An-74T-200 version recently scored a sales success in Iran.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey flies in its first visit to a Paris Air Show. The V-22 is part of a U.S. military display that includes the Bell XV-15 tilt-wing prototype and a McDonnell Douglas B-17. The Northrop Grumman B-2 was also slated to appear.

For the first time at the Paris Air Show, three new jet transports will overfly Le Bourget airport in close formation. Pierre Baud, Airbus Industrie’s chief test pilot, will lead the team of A340 and A330 widebodies and a narrowbody A321.

Beriev Design Bureau brought its A-40 Albatross to the Paris Air Show, marking one of the first public appearances for the large Soviet-built amphibious aircraft. The aircraft will be a waterbomber that can be converted quickly to passenger/cargo and other roles.

Soviet Antonov An-225 with Buran shuttle orbiter that flew in space last November is shown landing on Runway 25 at Le Bourget airport on its arrival from Kiev. The super heavyweight Antonov transport with its orbiter payload are making their first Western public presentation at the Paris Air Show.

Airbus Industrie’s No. 1 A320, powered by CFM International’s CFM56-5 engines, is equipped with wingtip-mounted vanes for flutter evaluations as part of the new European aircraft’s flight test and certification program. More than 280 of the fly-by-wire A320s have been sold.

NASA’s Boeing 747 carrying the shuttle Enterprise touches down at Le Bourget airport to terminate its Paris Air Show flight demonstration.

U.S. Army/Bell XV-15 tilt-rotor research aircraft hovers over runway at Le Bourget airport at completion of daily flying demonstration at the Paris Air Show. Engine nacelles are in the 90 deg. position for the hover but rotate forward to a conventional horizontal position for normal cruise flight.

Mockup of the Ariane launch vehicle was the featured display of the European Space Agency pavilion at the Paris Air Show.

McDonnell Douglas YC-15 (top) and Boeing YC-14, competitors in the USAF advanced medium STOL transport program, are shown in flight demonstrations at the Paris Air Show.

Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic transport prototype is shown at the Paris air show in landing configuration with nose dropped and gear down. (The second production version of the aircraft, which was powered by four Kuznetsov NK 144 afterburning turbofan engines of 38,580 lb. thrust, crashed in front of 250,000 spectators at the 1973 Paris show, killing all aboard and eight people on the ground.)

French-built 001 Concorde supersonic transport prototype waits for takeoff on the runway at Le Bourget Airport as the British-built 002 prototype makes its initial pass at the Paris Air Show.

Soviet Mil Mi-6 water bomber sprays part of its 3,000-3,800 gal. water load from two aft nozzles as part of its demonstration at the Paris Air Show.

Prototype of the Soviet Union’s Antonov An-22 military heavy logistics aircraft, displayed during the 26^th Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, has been flying since February. The An-22 has a gross weight of 500,000 lb. with a 160,000-lb. payload.

Dassault Mirage IV supersonic strategic bomber is shown taking off from Le Bourget during the recent Paris Air Show. The delta-wing aircraft is planned to furnish France’s strategic nuclear weapon delivery capability. 

Displayed at the Paris International Air Show, Dassault’s supersonic delta wing Mirage III prototype exhibited the degree to which the French are keeping pace with modern aircraft design.

The 10^th Paris Aero Show deserved the appellation “international,” for British, Czechoslovak, Dutch and Italian aircraft were exhibited alongside French machines. Germany was not represented, for that country’s admission to the League of Nations was too late to secure floor space, though a beautifully finished scale model of a Dornier Komet was exhibited on the stand of Farman Air Lines. America was absent, too.

General View of Paris Aeronautical Exposition.