Henri Farman

Henri Farman (26 May 1874 – 17 July 1958) was an Anglo-French pilot, aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer with his brother Maurice Farman. His family was British and he took French nationality in 1937.

Biography

Born in Paris, France, and given the name Henry, he was the son of a well-to-do British newspaper correspondent working there and his French wife. Farman trained as a painter at the École des Beaux Arts, but quickly become obsessed with the new mechanical inventions that were rapidly appearing at the end of the 19th century. Since his family had money, he was able to pursue this interest as an amateur sportsman. In the 1890s he became a championship cyclist, and at the turn of the century he discovered motor racing, competing for Renault in the Gordon Bennett Cup.

When the Voisin brothers started their aircraft construction business in 1907 Farman was one of their first customers, ordering a copy of the aircraft that had been built for Leon Delagrange. He used this aircraft, the Voisin 1907 biplane to set numerous official records for both distance and duration. These include the first to fly a complete circuit of 1 kilometre (13 January 1908, winning the 50,000 franc Grand Prix d'Aviation offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe) and 2 kilometres (21 March 1908). Some sources state that on 29 March, he became the first to take a passenger into the air,Leon Delagrange. (Others, however, believe that record belongs to Wilbur Wright and passenger Charles Furnas on 14 May of the same year.) Later in 1908, on 30 October, Farman went on to make the first cross-country flight in Europe, flying from Châlons to Reims (27 kilometres in 20 minutes).