Gabriel Voisin

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Gabriel Voisin (February 5, 1880 – December 25, 1973) was an aviation pioneer and the designer of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained (1 km) circular flight, which was built by Henry Farman on January 13, 1908 near Paris, France.

Voisin's company, founded by Voisin, became a significant manufacturer of military aircraft, especially the Voisin III.

He converted to the engineering and manufacturing of luxury automobiles under the brand Avions Voisin shortly.

Early life

Gabriel Voisin was born in Belleville-sur-Saône, France, on February 5, 1880, and his brother Charles Voisin, who was two years younger than him, was his main childhood companion. When his father abandoned his family, Amélie, carried her sons to Neuville-sur-Saône, where they settled near her father's factory.

The boys' education was handled by their grandfather, Charles Forestier, with military rigor. The boys went for hikes along the river, went fishing, and designed numerous contraptions. Gabriel was sent to school in Lyon and Paris, where he learned industrial design, a subject in which Voisin claims to have been especially gifted. He often returned home, and by the end of the century, the brothers had built, among other things, a rifle, a steamboat, and an automobile.

Early flying experiments

He joined an architectural company in Paris after completing his studies at Ecole des Beaux Arts de Lyon in 1899. While in Paris, he saw the Clément Ader Avion III, which had been on view at the Paris International Exposition of 1900. This reignited an interest in the challenges of powered flight. He attended a lecture delivered by Captain Ferdinand Ferber, one of the leading figures in French aviation circles at the time, after nine months of military service in February 1904. Voisin returned to Ferber for a first glance at early French aviation, Ernest Archdeacon, the leading promoter and financial supporter of early French aviation, was hired by Archdeacon, and Archdeacon hired him to test fly the Wright-type glider he had built. The experiments were carried out at Berck-sur-Mer in April 1904, and only short flights of about 20 m (66 ft) were achieved. In comparison to its front-mounted elevator, Archdeacon hired Voisin to produce another glider of similar style, but the wings have a different horizontal stabilizer. This was tested at Issy-les-Moulineaux on March 26, 1905, by towing it into the air with Archdeacon's car. Fortunately, the experiment was unmanned, with the pilot's position taking up 50 kg (110 lb) of ballast after the plane suffered a structural breakdown and crashed. It was not rebuilt.

Voisin later designed and built a float glider for Archdeacon. This aircraft is the first time Hargrave cells have been used both for the empennage and the wings. Voisin successfully landed it on June 8th, 1905, after being towed into the air behind a motor boat on the river Seine between the Billancourt and Sèvres bridges, operating a flight of about 600 m (2,000 ft). Voisin was recruited by Louis Blériot, who asked him to build him a similar machine later identified as the Bleriot II, while working on this aircraft. This was principally because the upper and lower wings were angled outwards, resulting in the outer'side-curtains' between upper and lower wings. After this first flight, Bleriot suggested to Voisin that they form a joint venture to develop aircraft, but Voisin's relationship with Archdeacon ended. On 18 July 1905, Voisin conducted flights in both aircraft. Despite the weather was unsuitable, Voisin decided to fly the plane because getting the necessary authorization to use the river was impossible. He flew in his own glider and then attempted a flight in Bleriot's. This went off quickly, but Voisin was unable to control it, and it crashed into the river. Voisin was trapped inside and was lucky not to drown. In the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Louis Bleriot's cine film of this experiment survives.

According to Voisin's account, Bleriot's next plane, a tandem biplane powered by an Antoinette engine pleading two tractor propellers with the wings, formed into a closed ellipse in front elevation, and the adoption of their eventual configuration was the result of a compromise between the two men. The forward wing was replaced by a conventional biplane arrangement and a second engine were unreliable in this aircraft's subsequent conversion (the Blériot IV), in which the forward wing was replaced by a conventional biplane configuration and a second engine were added. The plane was wrecked in a taxiing accident in Bagatelle on the morning of 12 November 1906, first with floats and then with a wheeled undercarriage, and then with a wheeled undercarriage, and the plane was destroyed in a taxiing crash. Alberto Santos-Dumont continued to fly his 14-bis canard biplane across Bagatelle later that day. Voisin and Blériot's death ended their collaboration, and Voisin and Blériot decided to form and produce aircraft together with his brother Charles Voisin.

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