Frédéric Airault

Frédéric Airault (; born 18 May 1868 in Paris, died 7 October 1944 in Clichy) was a French engineer and airship pilot who was the technical director of a number of automobile and aviation firms before the First World War.

Biography

Airault enrolled at the École des Arts et Métiers campus in Angers in 1884, gaining his ''diplôme d'ingénieur'' in 1887. Airault served with the French Navy for five years before joining the Société française de constructions mécaniques in 1892. In 1897, he designed a V-4 24-horsepower engine with progressive friction transmission, and starting in 1899 he worked at the car and bicycle manufacturer Hurtu as engineer, head of research and then Technical Director. He stayed there for four years, and in 1903 became a co-director of the Buchet factories in Levallois-Perret, a northwestern suburb of Paris. Élie Buchet, founder of Buchet, had died in late 1903.

Airault left Buchet in 1905 to become the managing director of Fabbrica di Automobili Florentia. Airault stayed there for a year before becoming the technical director of the Société française des trains Renard in 1906. The Daimler Company manufactured the Road Train under licence in the UK.

The industrialists Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe and Édouard Surcouf formed Société Astra to make dirigible airships. Airault was the director of the aeronautic park for the Astra III airship ''Ville-de-Nancy'' (piloted by Édouard Surcouf and :fr:Henry Kapférer) at the Exposition Internationale de l'Est de la France in Nancy in 1909. Airault piloted "Osmanli", the first Turkish airship, at the Parc Saint-Cloud on 18 April 1909.

He became technical director of Compagnie générale transaérienne (CGT, later Air France, founded in October 1909 by Louis Blériot), which was also owned by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe.Blériot had used an Anzani 3-cylinder W fan engine of about 3 litres to power the Blériot IX across the English Channel on 25 July 1909 (he had previously used Antoinette engines). He oversaw the installation of hydrogen gas plants at Nancy and then at Beauval for CGT.These were possibly water gas plants for continuous production of hydrogen. See

While testing the Astra VI ''l’España'' on 5 November 1909, the propeller shaft ruptured, breaking the nacelle. Airault avoided a catastrophe, landing safely near Frémainville, Seine-et-Oise (now Val d'Oise), some 50 miles (85 km) from Meaux. Brought back to Beauval, repaired and modified, ''l’España'' was delivered to the Spanish military authorities at the start of 1910.

In August 1910, Airault received his pilot-aeronaut certificate for dirigible balloons (along with Robert Balny d'Avricourt.) CGT started operating Astra dirigibles in France and Switzerland. Airault, as the company's chief pilot, directed operations of Surcouf's Astra VII ''Ville de Lucerne'' in August 1910 in Lucerne. CGT followed this with a seaplane service on Lake Lucerne and Lake Geneva, then cross-channel flights in 1911. Henri de la Meurthe also bought the Nieuport aircraft firm after Edouard Nieuport died in a flying accident in 1911.

In 1912, Airault lived at 25, Rue de Marignan, Paris.''Paris-Hachette'' 1912, p. 3.
(in French).

References

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External links

Contemporary advertisements for Hurtu and Buchet products
*Photo o

Concours du Grand Prix de L'Aero-Club de France, Esplanade des Invalides, Paris, 26 September 1909.
* Photo o
Astra VI dirigible España
with Kapférer, Airault, and Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe. Retrieved 22 March 2016

{{DEFAULTSORT:Airault, Frederic
1868 births
19th-century French engineers
Year of death missing
20th-century French engineers