Toulouse: the unique project of high school students and students of the academy who will build a replica of the Laté 28
On Monday, March 7, the Toulouse airmail museum L’Envol desPioneurs and the Toulouse Academy are launching an unprecedented educational project that will span five years: the construction by pupils and students of a legendary plane, the Late 28.
Rebuilding a Laté 28, a legendary aircraft piloted at the beginning of the 20th century by the pioneers of Aéropostale such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean Mermoz or Henri Guillaumet, is the unprecedented project piloted by the museum L’Envol des pioneers and the Academy of Toulouse. Launch of the operation, Monday, March 7.
The objective being to promote the technological and professional courses of the high schools of the Toulouse academy, the high school and university students will take turns for five years to produce “a non-flying scale 1 replica of an emblematic plane of the Aéropostale “, explain the partners.
A multidisciplinary project
Late 28? A 19-meter wingspan monoplane, commissioned in 1929, considered one of the first modern airliners, seating up to eight passengers. Equipped with wicker chairs and toilets on board, it has also been available in a seaplane version, the Laté 28.3.
“If the Laté 28 is so famous, it’s because it has made it possible to achieve many feats, smashing several speed records,” says L’Envol desPioneurs. For example, it was on board that aviator Jean Mermoz first managed to cross the South Atlantic with mail in 1930”. A feat for the time. The aircraft will be assembled in hangars, the former Air France engine workshops located opposite L’Envol des Pionniers, 6 rue Jacqueline-Auriol in Toulouse.
For the rector of the Toulouse Academy, this ambitious project will involve several disciplines. “This is a very fine multidisciplinary, ambitious, collaborative educational project between several high schools and several levels of training, and rooted in the history of airmail, enthuses Mostafa Fourar. This project-based pedagogy makes it possible to venture beyond the disciplines, and thus to mobilize the transversal skills of pupils and students. All this also contributes to the promotion of industrial technological and professional training by demonstrating their ability to innovate and to offer young people very motivating training courses and prospects for integration. »
Work with the tools of the time
For high school students and students involved in this project in connection with the National Education programs, it will be the assurance of plunging back into the daily life of the engineers, technicians and mechanics of Aéropostale, up to the design of the tools of the ‘ ‘era.
“Thanks to their knowledge of aeronautics and current technologies, they could compare solutions and design parts for the reconstruction of the Laté 28, explain the designers of the project. They will be able to understand and compare technological and technical innovations, between the production of the first Laté 28 in the Toulouse-Montaudran factory, opposite L’Envol des Pionniers, and the developments of the aircraft of tomorrow: methods, tools, production methods “.
Note that this project is part of the year of mechanics 2021/2022, initiated by the French Association of Mechanics (AFM). Finally, “to bring this reconstruction project to life for its visitors”, L’Envol des Pionniers organizes several mediations during events such as the European Heritage Days. In December 2022, the Laté 28 project will be highlighted during a temporary exhibition designed by the Toulouse museum on the visionary entrepreneur, Pierre-Georges Latécoère.
Partners of the Laté 28 project
The Laté 28 project, which will end on Monday March 7 at L’Envol desPioneurs, is the result of a partnership with Toulouse Métropole. It is carried by the mixed economy company created on the initiative of the town hall of Toulouse SEMECCEL, but also L’Envol des Pionniers in association with the Toulouse academy, with the support of the Cercle des Machines Volantes (in partnership with MGEN and Banque Populaire Occitane) and the LATÉ 28 association. The latter, created in March 2021, aims to federate and concretize the project through its various skills, in particular for the wood part of the wings. It is made up of a tight team of technical managers in charge of implementing the construction work with the support of training establishments in the Occitanie region.