Henri Dufaux
Henri Dufaux (born September 18, 1879 in Chens-sur-Léman , France , † December 25, 1980 in Geneva , Switzerland ) was a Franco-Swiss aviation pioneer , inventor , painter and politician .
life and work
Henri Dufaux, his brother Armand 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 .
He took drawing lessons from Barthélemy Menn . His artistic work took him to Florence and Paris, among others . In 1898, together with his brother Armand Dufaux , he invented a bicycle motor (Motosacoche) , which he then manufactured with the company H. & A. Dufaux fils (HADF) - a family business.
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: The "Dufaux 1" was a 17 kilogram helicopter, Model 2, an airplane, remained flightless with its eight wings, and the "Dufaux 3" crashed on its first flight.
After Armand Dufaux had flown over the entire length of Lake Geneva with the Dufaux 4 on August 28, 1910 and clearly surpassed the world record set by Louis Blériot , the Dufaux brothers aroused great interest with their design, not only among flight enthusiasts. The improved biplane Dufaux 5 led Ernest Failloubaz (1892-1919) of 4 prior to September 6, 1911, the army leadership, while flying with his friend Gustave Lecoultre as observers in the maneuvers of the 1st Army Corps reconnaissance missions. Despite a crash landing on the last day of the three-day mission, these flights mark the beginning of Swiss military aviation . “ The Dufaux brothers can claim to have brought powered flight in Switzerland from the experimental stage, the theory, to the practice. »
From 1913 on, Henri Dufaux concentrated more and more on painting.
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.
Web links
- Henri and Armand Dufaux in pionnair-ge (French)
- Henri and Armand Dufaux on memo.fr (French)
- NZZ format: the fascination of speed
Individual evidence
- ↑ Noémie de Rochefort-Luçays father was the French writer, journalist, playwright and politician Victor-Henri, marquis de Rochefort-Luçay .
- ^ William Hauptman: Dufaux, Frédéric. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz ., Accessed on December 24, 2008
- ↑ Le premier vol d'un hélicoptère à moteur à explosion, in pionnair-ge (French)
- ↑ Armand Dufaux 'record flight of August 28, 1910 on pionnair-ge with a detailed description and photos (French)
- ↑ The "Dufaux 4" in the Verkehrshaus Luzern ( Memento of the original from 7 July 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 23, 2008
- ↑ Official homepage of the Swiss Air Force: The first Swiss military flight ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 24, 2008
- ^ Quote from Alfred Waldis , Honorary President of the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dufaux, Henri |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Franco-Swiss aviation pioneer, inventor, painter and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 18, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chens-sur-Léman , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 25, 1980 |
| Place of death | Geneva , Switzerland |