François Hussenot
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François Hussenot (1912-1951) was a French engineer, credited with the invention of one of the early forms of the flight data recorder.
Hussenot was born on March 22, 1912. He attended the Ecole Polytechnique from 1930 to 1932. After graduation, he attended two other schools Ecole Militaire d'Application de l'Aéronautique in Versailles, where he obtained his pilot license, and the Ecole Supérieure d'Aéronautique (better known as SUPAERO), which he graduated in 1935 with a degree in aeronautical engineering.
His career began at the Centre d'Essais de Matériels Aériens (CEMA) of Villacoublay, an aircraft test center, in 1935. In July of that year, he married his wife, Yvonne. In 1936, he was sent to Saint-Raphaël, in southern France, to take part in the testing of heavy sea planes. In 1941, he moved to the Centre d'Essais en Vol de Marignane, where he made his early attempts at constructing a flight recorder. It should be noted that unlike those recorders used today, Hussenot's early models were photograph-based.
In July 1945, Hussenot was appointed as an engineer at the Brétigny-sur-Orge flight test center (Centre d'Essais en Vol de Brétigny-sur-Orge) as the director of the Methods and Try-Outs service (Service des Méthodes et Essais). In 1946, with Maurice Cambois and Charles Cabaret, he grounded the Ecole du Personnel Navigant (E.P.N.) school, which later became the EPNER (Ecole du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception). As of today, the EPNER is one of only four, government-run test pilot schools in the world, together with the Empire Test Pilots' School, the United States Air Force Test Pilot School and the United States Naval Test Pilot School.
During the following year, in 1947, Hussenot grounds the SFIM (Société Française des Instruments de Mesure) with his associate Marcel Ramolfo. The SFIM had a successful story of its own, beginning with the construction of a series of "type HB" photographic flight recorders. The initials HB stood for Hussenot and Beaudoin, the name of an early associate who helped Hussenot in developing the device during WWII. Those flight recorders were known as "Hussenographs". The SFIM is today part of the Safran group.
In 1948, Hussenot became professor at SUPAERO. In the same year, he was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, and was awarded the Médaille de l’Aéronautique (Medal of Aeronautics) in recognition for his services.
François Hussenot died during a plane crash which occurred on May 16, 1951, during a transit flight between Marignane and Mont-de-Marsan. He was aged thirty-nine.
