Armand Dufaux (1883–1941) was a

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aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

pioneer who became famous for flying the length of

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in 1910. His mother was Noémie de Rochefort-Luçay, daughter of French politician Henri Rochefort and his father was Swiss artist Auguste Frederic Dufaux, known as Frederic. Armand was one of three children. His older brother Henri Dufaux was also an aviation pioneer. Their maternal grandfather Henri Rochefort financially supported his grandsons' initial aeronautic experiments. ArmandDufauxAirship

He and his brother, Henri, were natives of

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. Their first design was a model

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weighing , which successfully achieved flight in April 1905. This was followed by a

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that was unable to fly, then a third design that crashed on its first flight. The Dufaux 4 was their first successful craft. On 28 August 1910, Armand flew it from St. Gingolph to Geneva (about in just 56 minutes and 5 seconds, and winning the Perrot-Duval prize of 5,000 Swiss francs for the feat. Later that year, the brothers established an aircraft business, and in 1911, sold their Dufaux 5 to 18-year-old Ernest Failloubaz. A stamp of the Swiss Post published in 1977 is reminiscent of the joint work of the brothers. "The Dufaux brothers can make use of the engine flight in Switzerland from the stage of experimentation, the theory, into practice." The Dufaux 4 is today on display at the Swiss Transport Museum. In 1997, Armand Dufaux was honored on a Swiss

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, as one of four pioneers of Swiss aviation.

References

External links

Swiss Museum of Transport info on Dufaux

Geneva air pioneers page, with timeline
1883 births 1941 deaths Aviation pioneers Engineers from Geneva Swiss aviators Swiss Air Force personnel {{Switzerland-engineer-stub