The 1910 Le Canard

Le Canard (lit. "The Duck") was a French seaplane, and the first seaplane in history. It succesfully took-off and flew on March 28, 1910, at Martigues, France. The plane flew for a distance of 800 meters over the water. It was invented by Henri Fabre. A DeHavilland Single Otter floatplane in Harbour Air livery. ... Martigues is a town and commune in the southeastern part of France, to the northwest of Marseille. ... Henri Fabre in 1910 Henri Fabre (born in Marseille on 29 November 1882, died in 1984) was a French aviator and the inventor of the seaplane. ...

Le Canard was developed over a period of four years by the French engineer Henri Fabre, a mecanic named Marius Burdin, former mechanic of Captain Fernand Ferber, and a naval architect from Marseilles named Léon Sebille. It was a plane equipped with three flotation devices (hence its first name, the "hydro-aéroplane" until 1913). The seaplane was equipped with a 50 horse-power rotary engine of the Gnome type, powering a 2.6 meter propeller. It has a spread of 14 meters, its length was 8.5 meters, and it weighed 380 kg. Henri Fabre in 1910 Henri Fabre (born in Marseille on 29 November 1882, died in 1984) was a French aviator and the inventor of the seaplane. ... Marseilles redirects here. ... Le Rhône 9C Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. ...

The first flight was certified by a representative of Martigues, Me Honoré Raphel.

In 1911, the seaplane was flown by Jean Becue at the prestigious event Concours de Canots Automobiles de Monaco. Following these successes, Henri Fabre built several seaplanes and commercialized them.

Two units of Le Canard are preserved today: one is in Marignane airport (Bouches du Rhône), the other is in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace du Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis), near Paris. Marignane is a commune of the Bouches-du-Rhône département, in southern France, located near Marseille. ... Bouches-du-Rhône is a département in the south of France named after the mouth of the Rhône River. ... The Musée de lAir et de lEspace, or The Museum of Air and Space, is a French museum, located on the grounds of the Le Bourget Airport near Paris. ... Le Bourget is a commune of the Seine-Saint-Denis département in France. ... Seine-Saint-Denis is a French département located in the ÃŽle-de-France région. ...

In the United States the first seaplane flight occured on Jan. 26, 1911, by Glenn H. Curtiss. On March 27, 1919, the first transatlantic flight was completed by a U.S. Navy seaplane. Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 - July 23, 1930) was an aviation pioneer and founder of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. ... The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ...