Louis Charles Breguet (January 2, 1880 in Paris - May 4, 1955 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
aircraftAn aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported...
designer and builder, one of the early
aviation pioneers.
In 1902, Louis married the daughter of painter Girardet, Nelly Henriette Julia Girardet, who owned a villa in
HoulgateHoulgate is a commune in the Calvados département in the Basse-Normandie region of France. Its postal code is 14510.-Geography:...
. Together they had five children and the couple later bought the villa
Le Clos de Royan which Louis renamed
Villa Bréguet.
Louis Charles Breguet (January 2, 1880 in Paris - May 4, 1955 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
aircraftAn aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported...
designer and builder, one of the early
aviation pioneers.
In 1902, Louis married the daughter of painter Girardet, Nelly Henriette Julia Girardet, who owned a villa in
HoulgateHoulgate is a commune in the Calvados département in the Basse-Normandie region of France. Its postal code is 14510.-Geography:...
. Together they had five children and the couple later bought the villa
Le Clos de Royan which Louis renamed
Villa Bréguet. There he entertained people of the world of aviation.
In 1905, with his brother Jacques, and under the guidance of Charles Richet, he began work on
a gyroplaneThe Breguet-Richet Gyroplane was an early French experimental rotary-wing aircraft developed by Breguet.-Design and development:The Gyroplane No.I was one of the earliest attempts to create a practical rotary-wing aircraft, developed by the Breguet brothers with help from Professor Charles Richet...
(the forerunner of the
helicopterA helicopter is an aircraft that is lifted and propelled by one or more horizontal rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades. Helicopters are classified as rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft to distinguish them from fixed-wing aircraft because the helicopter achieves lift with the...
) with flexible wings. It achieved the first ascent of a vertical-flight aircraft with a pilot in 1907. His first aircraft, which he built in 1909, set a speed record in 1911 for its 10
kilometreThe kilometre , symbol km is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second....
(6.2
mileA mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 1,609.344 meters or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters...
) flight. Also that year, he founded the
Société Anonyme des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis BreguetThe Société des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet also known as Breguet Aviation was a former French aircraft manufacturer.The company was set up in 1911 by aviation pioneer Louis Charles Breguet. In 1971 it merged with Dassault....
. In 1912, Breguet constructed his first
hydroplaneA hydroplane is a type of motorboat used exclusively for racing.A key aspect of Hydroplanes is that they only use the water they're on for propulsion and steering —when going at full speed they are primarily held aloft by a principle of fluid dynamics known as "planing", with only a tiny fraction...
.
He is especially known for his development of reconnaissance aircraft used by the French in
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
and through the 1920s. One of the pioneers in the construction of metal aircraft, the Breguet-14 day bomber, perhaps the most famous French warplane of all time, was made almost entirely of
aluminiumAluminium or aluminum is a silvery white and ductile member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al; its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
. As well as the French, sixteen squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force also used it. A plane of this type has a major role in the plot of the 1927 thriller
So DisdainedThis article is about the British novel by Nevil Shute.So Disdained is the second published novel by British author, Nevil Shute. It was first published in 1928 by Cassell & Co, then republished in 1951 by William Heinemann and issued in paperback by Pan Books in 1966.- Political and diplomatic...
by Neville Shute.
In 1919, he founded the
Compagnie des Messageries AeriennesCompagnie des Messageries Aériennes was a pioneering French airline established February 1919 by Louis-Charles Breguet. Other founders were Louis Blériot, Louis Renault and René Caudron. The first ceommercial route, a mail and freight service between Paris and Lille, was started 18 April 1919 using...
, which evolved into
Air FranceAir France is a French airline headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, France , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
.
Over the years, his aircraft set several records. A Breguet plane made the first nonstop crossing of the South Atlantic in 1927. Another made a 4,500 mile (7,250 km) flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1933, the longest nonstop Atlantic flight up to that time.
He returned to his work on the gyroplane in 1935. Created with co-designer René Dorand, the craft, called the
Gyroplane LaboratoireThe Gyroplane Laboratoire is considered by some to be the first, practicable helicopter in the world. Its designer, Frenchman Louis Breguet, had already experimented with rotorcraft in 1909, however, he chose to concentrate on airplanes until the end of the 1920s...
, flew by a combination of blade flapping and feathering. On December 22, 1935, it established a speed record of 67
mphThe mile per hour is a unit of speed, measured in Imperial units expressing the number of international miles covered per hour.It is currently the unit used for speed limits, and speeds, on roads in the United Kingdom and United States...
(108 km/h). It was the first to demonstrate speed as well as good control characteristics. The next year, it set an altitude record of 517 feet (158 m).
Breguet remained an important manufacturer of aircraft during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and afterwards developed commercial transports. Breguet’s range equation, for determining aircraft
rangeThe maximal total range is the distance an aircraft can fly between takeoff and landing, as limited by fuel capacity in powered aircraft, or cross-country speed and environmental conditions in unpowered aircraft....
, is also named after him.
He died of a heart attack in 1955 at
Saint-Germain-en-LayeSaint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris 19.1 km from the center.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
.