Armand Dufaux


Armand Dufaux was a Swiss aviation pioneer who became famous for flying the length of Lake Geneva in 1910.
His mother was Noémie de Rochefort-Luçay, daughter of French politician Henri Rochefort and his father was Swiss artist :fr:Frédéric_Dufaux|Auguste Frederic Dufaux, known as Frederic. Armand was one of three children. His older brother :fr:Henri_Dufaux|Henri Dufaux was also an aviation pioneer. Their maternal grandfather Henri Rochefort financially supported his grandsons' initial aeronautic experiments
. Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris.
He and his brother, :fr:Henri_Dufaux|Henri, were natives of Geneva. Their first design was a model helicopter weighing, which successfully achieved flight in April 1905. This was followed by a triplane that was unable to fly, then a third design that crashed on its first flight.
The Dufaux 4 was their first successful craft. On 28 August 1910, Armand flew it from St. Gingolph to Geneva (about in just 56 minutes and 5 seconds, and winning the Perrot-Duval prize of 5,000 Swiss francs for the feat.
Later that year, the brothers established an aircraft business, and in 1911, sold their Dufaux 5 to 18-year-old Ernest Failloubaz.
The Dufaux 4 is today on display at the Swiss Transport Museum. In 1997, Armand Dufaux was honored on a Swiss postage stamp, as one of four pioneers of Swiss aviation.