Armand Dufaux

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Henri Dufaux (left) and Armand Dufaux, 1905

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 grew up as children of Noémie de Rochefort-Luçay (1856–1943) and the Geneva painter and sculptor Frédéric Dufaux (1852–1943) in Paris and Geneva . Armand attended école Latour in Paris and then studied mechanics. Together, the brothers - Henri contributed the theoretical part - in their family company H. & A. Dufaux fils (HADF) in 1898 ( patent no. 21167 of February 24, 1900) designed an auxiliary engine that is located in a frame made of two steel tubes screwed into the frame triangle of a men's bicycle. By means of a drive belt and a belt rim attached to the rear wheel, the bicycle " ... even for mechanically untrained people became a motorcycle in five minutes ". Later they produced, among other things, the "Motosacoche" brand (pocket motorcycle) motorcycles, which were very successful in Europe.

A men's bike with the Motosacoche auxiliary engine
The Dufaux helicopter in the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris
The "Dufaux 4" on August 28, 1910 over Lake Geneva
The "Dufaux 4", March 25, 1911

In the Motosacoche SA Dufaux & Cie they founded , they developed the tiltrotor (convertible) from 1902 . Once again they worked together to design a helicopter for which a patent was applied for on February 24, 1904 and which was first demonstrated to the public on April 14, 1905. Both brothers were equally fascinated by aircraft construction, and they had demonstrated that they could build the light engines required: The "Dufaux 1" was a 17 kilogram helicopter, Model 2 - an airplane - remained flightless with its eight wings, and the "Dufaux 3 »crashed on first flight. The improved biplane Dufaux 5 led Ernest Failloubaz (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 mission, these flights mark the beginning of Swiss military aviation .

In the history of aviation , the brothers went to the " Dufaux 4 a". At the end of 1909, the automobile pioneers Perrot Duval announced a prize money of an impressive 5,000 Swiss francs at the time to promote aviation development . After initial failures, Armand and Henri successfully completed eight test flights with the "Dufaux 4" biplane in June and July 1910, over 23 kilometers on July 10 and a 31-minute flight near Viry on July 12 . On August 28, 1910, Armand took off from Noville / St. Gingolph at 5:45 a.m. and flew not far from the south bank at an altitude of around 50 meters over Lake Geneva to Geneva - he covered the 66-kilometer flight in 56 minutes and 5 seconds. With this pioneering achievement, Armand Dufaux had dared the world's longest flight over open water and won the prize money of the Perrot Duval Prize for crossing Lake Geneva along its entire length.

During the next few months took the brothers Dufaux numerous other flights and participated with other known personalities - for example, with Pierre Emile Taddéoli (1879-1920), flying boat -Pionier and until 1920 chief pilot of Ad Astra Aero  - at air shows they to the USA led. In the following years the brothers parted ways and Armand worked from 1913 until the end of his life as a technician and engineer in France, while Henri mainly devoted himself to painting. Armand Dufaux designed two conceptually groundbreaking fighters (Dufaux C1 and C2) for the Armée de l'Air in 1915/17 , but they did not get beyond the experimental stage. He had a large number of his inventions patented and remained active in aircraft construction until the 1920s. He then concentrated on automobile construction and designed racing sleds, among other things. Together with his brother, he was appointed medal of the Légion d'honneur on March 13, 1931 . In 1939 he returned to Switzerland and died on July 17, 1941 in Geneva. He was married to Marcelle Zavatero; Armand Dufaux found his final resting place in the cemetery in the Geneva suburb of Le Petit-Saconnex.

A stamp issued by the Swiss Post in 1977 commemorates the joint work of the brothers. “ The Dufaux brothers can claim to have brought powered flight in Switzerland from the experimental stage, the theory, to the practice. »

"Faux Dufaux" project

On August 28, 2010, the pioneering feat of flying by the Dufaux brothers will be repeated and the Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier will fly over Lake Geneva along the historic route from 1910. To mark the 100th anniversary of the flight, the “Faux Dufaux” working group will recreate the “Dufaux 4”, the oldest surviving Swiss aircraft, on display in the Lucerne Museum of Transport . A total of around 3,000 helpers - private individuals, lecturers, apprentices and students - from ETH Lausanne , vocational and technical colleges in western Switzerland are participating in the project, which has a budget of 4.7 million Swiss francs .

literature

  • Alfred Waldis , Ulrich C. Haller: The Dufaux brothers: Henri (1879–1980), Armand (1883–1941). Attached work: Oskar Bider by Ulrich C. Haller [among others]. In: Swiss pioneers in business and technology 46th Association for Economic History Studies, Meilen 1987.
  • Six Swiss aviation pioneers: Henri Dufaux, Armand Dufaux, Oskar Bider, Alfred Comte, Walter Mittelholzer, Balz Zimmermann. Association for Economic History Studies (Ed.), Meilen 1987.
  • Martine Piguet: Dufaux, Armand. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Web links

Commons : Armand Dufaux  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Noémie de Rochefort-Luçays father was the French writer, journalist, playwright and politician Victor-Henri, marquis de Rochefort-Luçay .
  2. ^ William Hauptman: Dufaux, Frédéric. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz ., Accessed on December 24, 2008
  3. ↑ Quote from the 1905 operating instructions
  4. ↑ Le premier vol d'un hélicoptère à moteur à explosion, in pionnair-ge (French)
  5. ↑ The “Dufaux 4” in the Verkehrshaus Luzern ( memento from 7 July 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on 23 December 2008
  6. ^ Official website of the Swiss Air Force: The first Swiss military flight ( Memento from August 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 24, 2008
  7. ^ Website of Perrot Duval Holding AG: Summary of the history of Perrot Duval Holding AG ( PDF 836kb), accessed on December 24, 2008
  8. ↑ Pierre Emile Taddéoli in pionnair-ge (French)
  9. ↑ Dufaux-C1 et Avion-Canon (C2) in pionnair-ge (French)
  10. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt (January 22, 1977): Four Aviation Pioneers as a special series ( Memento from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Quote from Alfred Waldis , Honorary President of the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne
  12. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger (December 23, 2008): Replica of Switzerland's oldest aircraft - Nicollier piloted , accessed on December 23, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Dufaux, Armand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Swiss aviation pioneer, inventor and designer
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1941
Place of death Geneva