Armand Dufaux
Armand Dufaux ( born January 13, 1883 in Paris, † July 17, 1941 in Geneva ) was a French-Swiss aviation pioneer, inventor and designer.
Life and work
Armand Dufaux, his brother Henri (1879-1980) and his younger sister are as children of Noémie de Rochefort- Luçay (1856-1943) and the Geneva painter and sculptor Frédéric Dufaux (1852-1943) grew up in Paris and Geneva. Armand visited Paris in the école Latour and then studied mechanics. Together, the brothers constructed - Henri drove the theoretical part with - in their family H. & A. Dufaux fils ( HADF ) in 1898 ( Patent No. 21167 of 24 February 1900) an auxiliary motor, which in a frame consisting of two steel tubes screw in the frame triangle of a man's bicycle left. By means of a drive belt and a belt attached to the rear wheel rim was the bike " ... even in mechanically untrained persons in five minutes to the motorcycle ." Later they produced among others, the highly successful in Europe motorcycles branded " Motosacoche " (pocket bike ).
Participants set of them Motosacoche SA Dufaux & Cie, they developed from 1902 onwards the tiltrotor ( convertible ). Again, together they constructed a helicopter, which was filed on February 24, 1904 for a patent for the first time publicly demonstrated on 14 April 1905. From aircraft both brothers were equally fascinated, and they had proven to be able to build the necessary light engines: The " Dufaux 1 " was a 17 -pound helicopter, model 2, an aircraft was unable to fly with eight wings, and the " Dufaux 3 » crashed during the first flight. The improved Dufaux 5 biplane led Failloubaz Ernest ( 1892-1919 ) - 19 years old at the time the youngest pilot in Switzerland - from 4 to 6 September 1911, the Swiss army before by the with his friend Gustave Lecoultre as observers in the maneuvers 1st Army Corps flew reconnaissance missions. Despite a crash landing on the last day of the three day deployment highlight these flights the beginning of the Swiss military aviation.
Received in the aviation history with the brothers of the " Dufaux 4» are. End of 1909, the automotive pioneers Perrot Duval had announced a prize of his time stately 5,000 Swiss francs for the promotion of aviation development. After initial failures Armand and Henri completed with the " Dufaux 4 » Double Decker in June and July 1910 successful test flights over eight, on July 10, more than 23 kilometers, on 12 July a 31minütigen flight near Viry. On August 28, 1910 Armand started by 5 clock of 45 for Noville / St. Gingolph and flew near the south shore in about 50 meters altitude above the Lake of Geneva to Geneva - the approximately 66 -kilometer flight Stretched he mastered in 56 minutes and 5 seconds. Armand Dufaux had ventured with this pioneering achievement to date the world's longest flight over open water and won the units awarded prize money of Perrot Duval price for the crossing of Lake Geneva over its entire length.
During the next months, the brothers Dufaux undertook numerous other flights and participated with other well-known personalities - for example, Pierre Emile Taddéoli (1879-1920), flying boat pioneer and until 1920, chief pilot of Ad Astra Aero - at air shows, which they have to in U.S. led. In subsequent years, the brothers parted ways, and Armand worked from 1913 until his death as a technician and engineer in France, while Henri mainly devoted to painting. Armand Dufaux constructed 1915/17 for the Armée de l'Air two conceptually groundbreaking fighter planes ( Dufaux C1 and C2), but never got beyond the experimental stage. He left a large number of his inventions patented and remained active until the 1920s in aircraft. Thereafter, he focused on the automotive and construction designs include luge. Together with his brother, he was appointed on 13 March 1931 awardees of the Légion d' honneur. In 1939 he returned to Switzerland and died on 17 July 1941 in Geneva. He married Marcelle Zavatero; his final resting place took Armand Dufaux in the Geneva suburb of Le Petit- Saconnex cemetery.
At the joint work of the brothers recalled a 1977, stamp of the Swiss Post. " The brothers Dufaux can claim to have brought the powered flight in Switzerland on the stage of experimentation, theory into practice across. "
Project " Faux Dufaux »
On 28 August 2010, the aeronautical pioneer of the brothers Dufaux is repeated and the Lake Geneva from the Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier along the historic route from 1910 overflown. The working group " Faux Dufaux " is the 100th anniversary of the flight, the certificate issued in the Transport Museum in Lucerne " Dufaux 4», the oldest Swiss aircraft rebuild. The project with a budget of 4.7 million Swiss francs to participate a total of about 3,000 workers - individuals, lecturers, trainees and students - from ETH Lausanne, western Switzerland vocational and technical high schools.