Henri Lachambre

Who was Henri Lachambre?

Henri Lachambre was a French manufacturer of balloons. His factory was in the Paris suburb Vaugirard. He also participated in ballooning himself and attained a number of 500 ascents.

Lachambre supplied balloons to both the US Signal Corps and the ill-fated arctic mission of S. A. Andrée in 1897. He worked together with the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, who in 1898 flew his first self-owned balloon.

Together with his nephew Alexis Machuron Lachambre wrote a book about Andrée's expedition, Au pôle nord en ballon, which was quickly translated into Swedish, English, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Polish.