A brief history of the world's first seaplane By Willie Bodenstein 19.05.2024 Born on 29 November 1882 Henri Fabre, a French aviation pioneer, educated in the Jesuit College of Marseilles where he undertook advanced studies in sciences, is acknowledged as the inventor of the first successful seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion. He intensively studied airplane and propeller designs and patented a system of flotation devices which he used when he succeeded in taking off from the surface of the Etang de Berre. The Hydravion (French for seaplane/floatplane) was developed over a period of four years by Fabre. The aircraft was a canard configuration monoplane whose structure made extensive use of a beam design working as a spanwise spar on its wing panels and forward canard surface, patented by Fabre. This was a Warren truss girder with all members having a streamlined section. Two of these beams, one above the other and connected by three substantial struts, formed the fuselage of the aircraft. The wing, which had pronounced dihedral and whose leading edge was formed by an exposed Fabre beam, was mounted below the rear of the upper beam, and the Gnome Omega rotary engine driving a two-bladed pusher Chauvière propeller was mounted behind it. On 28 March 1910 it successfully took off and flew for a distance of about 500 metres (1,600 ft) at Étang de Berre, Martigues, Bouches-du-Rhône, France and became the first seaplane in history. Fabre had no prior flying experience. He flew the floatplane successfully three more times that day and within a week he had flown a distance of 5.6 km (3.5 mi). The aircraft then became badly damaged in an accident. The restored example of the aircraft remain- the crashed Hydravion which was collected in 1922 and later restored and displayed by the Musée de l'air et de l'espace (French Air and Space Museum) at Le Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis), and a replica, close to the location of the initial flight, at Marseille Provence Airport in Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône). Fabre was soon contacted by Glenn Curtiss and Gabriel Voisin who used his invention to develop their own seaplanes. He passed away on 30 June 1984 at the age of 101 as one of the last living pioneers of human flight. Seaplane Base AirVenture 2009 to 2019

History Aviation Personalities

Copyright © Pilot's Post PTY Ltd
The information, views and opinions by the authors contributing to Pilot's Post are not necessarily those of the editor or other writers at Pilot's Post.