Europe's First Kilometre Circuit
Grand Prix d'Aviation
The most successful aircraft of the year was by far and away the one made by the brothers Charles and Gabriel Voisin. With a biplane elevator at the front, it was clearly influenced by the Wright's designs, but it also owed something to boxkite construction, and carried a huge square tail assembly at the rear. Power was provided by the 50hp Antoinette. It was a crude and heavy machine with no control in roll at all, but it was capable of staying in the air for several seconds at a time, and on this basis the brothers set up a workshop to manufacture it. In the summer of 1907 their third production machine was ordered by Henry Farman.
Henry
Farman was born in 1873, the son of a respected English newspaper correspondant
working in Paris. Henry trained as a painter at the École des
Beaux Artes, but quickly become obsessed not with painting, but with
the new mechanical inventions that were rapidly appearing at the end of
the nineteenth century. Since the Farmans were well-off he was able to
pursue this interest as an amateur sportsman. Farman had a natural flair
for getting the 'feel' of a piece of machinery, and enjoyed considerable
success. In the 1890s he became a championship cyclist, and at the turn
of the century he discovered motor racing. Driving Panhard cars he came
fifth in the Paris-Berlin road race of 1901, and then won the Paris-Vienna
in 1902. With his mechanic he covered the 615 miles to the Austrian capital
in just 16 hours along unmade roads. In 1903 he came in third in that year's
Gordon Bennett Race, which was held in Ireland after the French government
banned racing on open roads as too dangerous.
Motor racing
in the early 1900s was a sport for the fearless!
Farman himself became a casualty of the sport when he was involved in a serious accident. He fully recovered, but the experience destroyed his enthusiasm for cars. Nevertheless his fascination with machinery endured. He was aware of the Voisin float-glider experiments on the Seine during 1905/06, and he had flown in balloons before with his brother, Richard. When the Voisins began to produce a powered aeroplane for sale in 1907 he was one of their first customers. He made his first flight at the end of September and, displaying his usual sure feel for machines, he was soon able to stay in the air longer than anyone else. On 26 October he flew for 771 m. (843 yds) at Issy. For this flight he won a cup sponsored by Ernest Archdeacon of the Aéro-Club.
Later
on, 
