1909: one aircraft was the star of the show at the Grand Palais, the Blériot type XI with which the aviator Louis Blériot made the first successful flight across the English Channel. This was the first Air Show at the Grand Palais, an event then known as the "Exposition internationale de locomotion aérienne". The interior design by André Granet, who since his youth had been fascinated by flying, was such a success that the Automobile-Club subsequently commissioned Granet to do the same for the Car shows.
The critic Louis Baudry De Saunier described the scene thus in the magazine L'Illustration: "Airborne mechanical locomotion, with its mysterious problems and future revolutions, could not fail to arouse the enthusiasm of the crowd. Never have so many thronged to the Grand Palais; police officers had to form a cordon to restrain the sea of visitors around these pieces of wood and canvas with which Wright had played at being a bird".
This was not an isolated triumph. The great feats of civil aviation, including transatlantic crossings, records of speed and altitude, and night flights provided the substance of dreams, before becoming a means of transport for all. Till 1951, the Air Shows were a regular attraction in the Nave in André Granet's breathtaking decors.
