Pégoud Flies Upside Down, 1913

French aviator Adolphe Pégoud ranks as one of the best and bravest pilots in history, and he knew how to wow a crowd. On this day in 1913 he introduced a trick that scared even other pioneers of flight—he flew upside down, for an audience at the Juvisy aerodrome outside Paris.
A correspondent described the scene [...]

Pegoud in a Bleriot XI in 1913. (SI 2001-11634)
French aviator Adolphe Pégoud ranks as one of the best and bravest pilots in history, and he knew how to wow a crowd. On this day in 1913 he introduced a trick that scared even other pioneers of flight—he flew upside down, for an audience at the Juvisy aerodrome outside Paris.
A correspondent described the scene in the September 13, 1913 issue of Flight:
It was at the instance [sic] of M. Pégoud that M. [Louis] Blériot consented to let him try this extraordinary feat. M. Blériot hesitated for a long time, not because he did not think that the monoplane would answer readily enough, and stand the test, but because he had the very natural apprehension that the pilot might lose his nerve when he was upside down, but M. Pégoud felt so ...