Armand Dufaux

Armand Dufaux

Armand Dufaux (1883 - 1941) was a Swiss aviation pioneer who became famous for flying the length of Lake Geneva in 1910.

Dufaux Airship 1906
Dufaux helicopter (1905). Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris.

He and his brother, Henri Dufaux (1879-1980) were natives of Geneva. Their first design was a model helicopter weighing 17 kg (which successfully achieved flight in April, 1905),[1] this was followed by a large eight-wing plane that was unable to fly, then a third design that crashed on its first flight.

The Dufaux 4 was their first successful craft. On 28 August 1910, Armand flew it from St. Gingolph to Geneva (c.40 mi. 64 km), taking just 56 minutes and 5 seconds, and winning the Perrot-Duval prize of 5,000 Swiss francs for the feat.[2]

Later in 1910, the brothers established an aircraft business, and in 1911, sold their "Dufaux 5" to an 18-year-old Ernest Failloubaz, whose reconnaissance flights were the beginning of Swiss military aviation.

The Dufaux 4 is today on display at the Swiss Transport Museum. In 1997, Armand Dufaux was honored on a Swiss postage stamp, as one of four pioneers of Swiss aviation.

References

  1. ↑ Longyard, William H. (1994). Who’s Who in Aviation: 500 Biographies History. California: Presidio Press. p. 61. ISBN 0-89141-556-4.
  2. ↑ "Foreign Aviation News". Flight 2 (88): 719. 3 Sep 1910. Retrieved 25 Aug 2013.

See also

Media related to Armand Dufaux at Wikimedia Commons