Today in Technology History
(Published weekdays. To receive "Today in Technology History" by e-mail, click here. To read past issues, click here.)
March 28
We continue our celebration of the centennial of powered flight with the story of the first seaplane. It was exactly 93 years ago that an airplane lifted off from water for the first time.
The plane that accomplished that feat was designed, built and flown by Henri Fabre, a young Frenchman. Starting as early as 1908, he studied and experimented with various designs for propellers and floaters. He built his first seaplane in 1909.
On March 28, 1910 -- when Fabre was not yet 28 years old -- he conducted his first successful test, flying a rickety biplane to which he had attached floaters and a 50-horsepower engine. He took off from Lake Berre near the French city of Martigues and flew for about 1,650 feet before landing on the water again.
Fabre soon had longer flights in his plane, including at least one flight of a mile and a half. Fabre called his plane a Hydravian, but it was given the nickname "Canard" (meaning "duck").
Within a few years, seaplanes were used in wars and in airline travel. By the 1940s, some seaplanes -- many of which were more like boats with wings than like planes that could float -- were large enough to carry several dozen passengers. Today, they are mostly used in places where there are many lakes or where the terrain makes ground landings impossible.
Fabre had nothing to do with these later innovations; he is remembered primarily for his historic first flight. He has one other claim to fame, however: he outlived all the other original aviation pioneers. Fabre died in 1984 at the age of 102.
Related links:
Click here to see a picture of Fabre's "Canard" today, hanging in a museum.
Click here and here to read more about and see more pictures of Fabre and his planes.
Click here to see pictures from a 1912 seaplane competition.
| Biotechnology | Convergence | Creativity | Culture | E-conomics | Education |
| Equity | Gov't & Politics | Innovation | National Security | Personal Security |
For errors, broken links, questions or comments,
contact webmaster@tecsoc.org.
