Across the Occitanie region in southern France, volunteer associations are restoring and flying historic aircraft that shaped the history of French aeronautics, from World War One biplanes to Cold War-era patrol planes. Enthusiasts describe the work, carried out year-round rather than just during France's annual Heritage Days, as a fight against neglect, cost and vanishing support for vintage aviation.
The aircraft involved include types built by Morane-Saulnier, Bregeut, Latecoere, Potez and Transall, along with vintage gliders. The Bregeut 14, the biplane immortalised by the pilots of the Latecoere airmail line, was built in more than 8,000 examples during the First World War, but only two originals survive today, one at Le Bourget in France and one at the Tikkakoski museum in Finland.
The Aeroscopia museum near Toulouse has become a reference point for preserving historic aircraft, though the closure of the Montaudran airfield, birthplace of the Aeropostale airmail adventure, remains a loss for aviation enthusiasts. The aerospace sector in the region supports around 66,000 jobs and trains 19,000 students within an ecosystem more than a century old.
The Montagne Noire glider museum
At Vaudreuille in Haute-Garonne, the Musee de l'aviation legere de la Montagne Noire sits on the former site of the national gliding training centre, which operated between 1932 and 1980 and set world records during that period. The site is run by the Apparat association, founded in 1974 by Bernard Gabolde.
A hangar entrance displays a replica of the kite-like "Oiseau" built in 1873 by Clement Ader, the Muret-born inventor. Volunteer Claude Andrieu, 83, said Ader tested the 8-metre device by gliding it in the wind on hillsides near Villeneuve-la-Comptal, a precursor to Ader's powered aircraft, the Eole, which made its first flight in 1890.
Andrieu pointed to a ground flight simulator once used to train student pilots, alongside the 1947 Nord 2000 Olympic glider and postwar competition models built by Bregeut, Caudron and Fouga. In the centre's first year, founder Jean Thomas set a duration record of 3 hours 25 minutes; a decade later Eric Nessler flew for 38 hours 6 minutes, and in 1961 Jean-Paul Wiess and Rene Siaudeau reached an altitude of 10,400 metres. The hangar also holds a Morane-Saulnier MS 505 tow plane, derived from the German Fieseler Storch, which appeared in the 2017 film "La Promesse de l'Aube" starring Pierre Niney and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Roland Garros's fighter reborn in Tarbes
On 21 February 2025, test pilot Gilles Bellot flew a replica of the Morane Type L R-02 at Tarbes-Laloubere at the foot of the Pyrenees, built by the association Heritage des Avions Morane-Saulnier. President Sebastien Drapier said the Morane Type L, designed in 1913, was the aircraft flown by Roland Garros.
Garros and engineer Raymond Saulnier used the Type L to create France's first fighter aircraft, fixing a machine gun to fire through the propeller using a bullet deflector; Garros won a string of victories from April 1915. Morane-Saulnier, now part of Daher, is the world's oldest aircraft manufacturer still in operation, and marked its centenary in 2011, when the association's founder Daniel Bacou launched the replica project.
A first replica built for the centenary was donated to the Oshkosh museum in the United States in 2017. The new R-02 replica flew last year to mark the 110th anniversary of fighter aviation, according to company historian Philippe de Segovia. The aircraft, now with 30 flight hours, appeared at the national air show in Cognac in late May and will be shown at Tarbes-Laloubere aerodrome for Heritage Days. Other aircraft in the works there include a Rallye 100S "Marine" and a Paris III business jet.
The Bregeut 14 of Gandalou
At Castelsarrasin's Gandalou aerodrome, pilot Luc Gimazane, who has logged 27,000 flight hours including more than 500 on this aircraft, flies a replica Bregeut XIV registered F-POST. The original Bregeut 14, designed by Louis Bregeut in 1917 as a reconnaissance and bombing biplane, later became the workhorse of the Aeropostale airmail service. A second surviving replica, built in 1980 for a television series, is kept at the Michelin museum.
Gimazane said the project began in 1992 after a Toulouse-Saint-Louis rally in Senegal, when Eugene Bellet invited him to retrace the pioneers' route the following year. Former Latecoere production chief Michel Barbier and technician Leo Chagnes built the aircraft over 11 years; Socata test pilot Christian Briand flew it for the first time on 11 November 2003, though certification took another seven years. In 2010 the aircraft finally flew the pilots' route to Senegal, honouring Aeropostale figures including Daurat, Vacher, Mermoz, Guillaumet and Saint-Exupery.
Gimazane said heritage aviation has less and less support and fewer airshows, with flying costing 800 euros an hour; the mechanic works as a volunteer and the five pilots pay for their own training flights. "As long as we can fly it, we do," he said. This weekend the aircraft will fly to Rieux-Minervois in tribute to Leopold Gourp, a local Latecoere Line pilot and friend of Mermoz who died 100 years ago from injuries after being captured by Moorish rebels, before being shown at Castelsarrasin on 19 and 20 September, free of charge, from 4pm to 5.30pm.
A Nieuport 17 built alone in a garage
Laurent Thomas, a former Transall and A400M simulator instructor, built a replica Nieuport 17 by himself in his garage. He said the aircraft, dating to 1916, was the first fighter designed as such, with machine guns synchronised to fire through the propeller, and was flown by French aces Georges Guynemer and Charles Nungesser. Construction took five years, between 2005 and 2010, and the aircraft has flown 350 hours, appearing at events marking the centenary of the First World War. Thomas said it is likely the only airworthy replica of the type and serves as a tribute to Rene Dorme, a lesser-known ace of the Cigognes squadron.
Potez 60 trainers and the "Popular Aviation" movement
In Carcassonne, the Association des constructeurs amateurs et pilotes audois (Acapa) maintains three Potez 60 biplanes, wood-and-fabric two-seaters with high wings. The type was ordered by the state as a trainer alongside the Caudron Luciole for the Aviation Populaire scheme, launched on 31 July 1936 by Air Minister Pierre Cot under the Blum government to democratise flying and train future pilots for free ahead of the Nazi threat; the programme marks its 90th anniversary this year.
Jean-Pierre Puyo, 88, and his son Yves, 58, own the blue Potez 60 registered F-PRYP, found in Normandy. Yves said the Vichy government had ordered the destruction of these aircraft, and the family bought theirs to keep it in France, rebuilding more than half of it between 1991 and 1996; this year marks 30 years since it returned to flight. Yves, who gained his glider licence at 15 in Revel, said the plane is easy to fly and takes off in a short distance; he was also the last pilot to land at Montaudran on the day the airfield closed.
VAMP keeps a Morane 733 flying in Auch
At Auch aerodrome, the association Vintage Aircraft Midi-Pyrenees (VAMP), founded in 2014 by former Airbus A380 chief flight mechanic Gerard Desbois, operates a Yugoslav UTVA 66, two Pipers and a Morane-Saulnier MS 733 Alcyon registered F-AYOT. Desbois said the three-seat Alcyon, launched in 1951, was used to train Air Force and Navy pilots before being passed to flight training centres in Carcassonne, Montpellier, Grenoble and Saint-Yan.
Facing scrapping, the aircraft had been dismantled and stored in Switzerland until a member of the association alerted VAMP, which brought it back to France in 2014; it arrived in the Gers region in April 2015. Restored, it took part last year in the first air show held in Auch since 1911. Desbois said preserving old aircraft is a constant struggle due to regulation, funding, fuel costs and France's lack of a culture of protecting its aviation heritage.
Cold War patrol planes preserved at Nimes-Garons
Nimes-Garons in the Gard department was a French naval air base until 2011. Two aircraft there, a Bregeut BR 1050 Alize and a Bregeut BR 1150 Atlantic with a wingspan of more than 36 metres, were handed to the Conservatoire historique de l'aeronautique navale (Chan), active since 2010, after escaping the scrapyard. President Marc Guittard, a former tactical coordinator on the Atlantic, described the Alize as the last modernised example and the Atlantic as the last ATL1 in France besides the one at Le Bourget; both can be visited free of charge by appointment.
Guittard said the Alize entered service in 1961 and flew from the carriers Arromanches, Foch and Clemenceau, while the Atlantic operated from Brest and Nimes to monitor Soviet submarines. The Atlantic was designed for a NATO anti-submarine warfare programme and was also acquired by Italy, Germany and the Netherlands; the last French example served at Nimes until 1996, flown by a 13-member crew. Its successor, the Atlantic 2, can remain airborne for up to 16 hours, a mission Guittard linked to current tensions in the Atlantic, Baltic, Black Sea and Mediterranean.
Navy aircraft featured at Toulouse's Ailes Anciennes event
On 3 and 4 October, the "Week-end aux Ailes" event in Toulouse will mark the 400th anniversary of the French Navy. The Ailes Anciennes association will display a Crusader, a Dassault Etendard IV and a Super Etendard Modernise that took part in the 1983 retaliatory raid on Baalbek in Lebanon, along with the restoration of its Bregeut Alize, embarked helicopter engines and model collections dating back to 1930.
