Friday, December 28, 2012

Henri Farman

Homage to Henri Farman and the Voisin brothers by Paul Landowski, rue Henry-Farman, Paris

Homage to Henri Farman and the Voisin brothers by Paul Landowski, 1929
Rue Henry-Farman
Quartier de Javel, 15th arrondissement
Paris, July 2012

See also: King Edward VII - The Sons of Cain

“If we pass over his tentative hops during September 1907, we can mark October 1907 as the month of his first powered and sustained flights (including one at Issy of 2,530ft on October 26), and January 1908 as the month of his first powered, sustained and controlled flying, in that he made the first officially observed kilometre circuit on January 13, and to won the Prix Deutsch-Archdeacon. Henri Furman was also the first
true and proper powered aeroplane pilot of Europe. Santos Dumont’s best ‘flight’ in 1906 —when he was adjudged to have made the first powered flights in Europe— was only some 720ft, after which he speedily abandoned his ingenious but impractical and virtually uncontrollable aircraft, and did not make a significant aeroplane flight of any kind until 1909. Furthermore, neither Delagrange nor Blériot, despite their good efforts in 1907, were able to fly properly until well into 1908. For the academic, it should be said that one finds Farman‘s Christian name spelt both ‘Henry’ and ‘Henri’ during 1907 and 1908, with Henri appearing on the tail-unit side-curtains of his Voisin biplane, and on his own designed machines of l909.” (From All Quarters – Obituary of Henry Farman, Flight, 1958)

2 comments:

cieldequimper said...

Those are the days when the French could fly...

Dina said...

Birds have it so much easier.