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MackSolo Team Update: Day 53 ✈️ 🌍 Mack ...

Macksolo 2022/05/15 12:28:47
MackSolo Team Update: Day 53 ✈️ 🌍

Mack is on a roll now! Yihaaa! 💪🤞

Yesterday, he took off from #Caïro and, following the Nile for a while, landed in Luxor, where the #Pharaohs are sleeping in the Valley of the Kings and Queens.

Whilst sharing some pictures of Mack absorbing the ancient history of this rich civilisation, let us tell you something about the more recent #aviation history of #Egypt 🇪🇬

In 1910, it was a #Belgian industrialist 🇧🇪 - and one of Mack's nationalities -, Édouard Empain, who created #Heliopolis, "the City of the Sun", a suburb around 10 kilometres north-east of the Cairo city centre. Four years earlier, he had bought 25 square kilometres of desert 🐪 land and planned a modern suburb of luxury and pleasure. The exotically styled "Oasis of Heliopolis", as it was called despite not being an actual oasis 🌴, had a golf course, a big amusement park, a sports stadium, a horse-race course, electric lighting and two luxurious hotels, and was connected to the city centre by an electric railway.

He was looking for an event that would promote the new suburb. As flying ✈️ was the hippest and coolest thing then, he decided on an Air Race. For this purpose the Aero club of egypt was created. The event was also supported by the Automobile and Touring Club of Egypt, the Egyptian Tourism Association and the French "Ligue Nationale Aérienne", whilst the head of the organizing committee was Prince Ahmed Fouad, who would in 1922 become King Fouad I.

A rectangular five-kilometre course was laid out in the #desert. Participants had to race each other between Heliopolis and the #Pyramids with only two landings allowed and a special award for the #plane that flew highest.

Twelve pilots and eighteen planes were officially entered, 11 men and 1 woman. The competitors had to pay a 2,000 francs fee for entering, which would be refunded if they crossed the starting line at least once and the Aéro-Club required all participating pilots to have a licence, no doubt after highly publicized accidents of novice flyers during the "Grand Quinzaine" event in Paris 😅😬.

Despite the success the event would unfortunately not be repeated. If you want to read all about it, go here: http://www.thefirstairraces.net/meetings/he1002/events.php

#MackSolo #younstersmakeadifference #guinessworldrecord #rtw

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