The racing Englishmen of Paris

The Farmans were English by blood and Parisian by birth. Their father, Thomas Farman, was the Paris correspondent of the London Standard. Henri trained as a painter at the École des Beaux-Arts, then won the French cycling championship in 1892; with his brother Maurice he set a tandem hour record in 1895. Both moved on to motor racing. In 1901 Maurice won at Pau the first race ever called a Grand Prix, and in 1905 Henri crashed in Gordon Bennett Cup trials, landed on top of a tree, climbed down unhurt and lit a cigarette.

A kilometre for fifty thousand francs

In 1907 Henri bought a biplane from Gabriel Voisin and set about improving it. On 10 November 1907 at Issy-les-Moulineaux he completed the first full circle by a European aeroplane, and on 13 January 1908 he flew a closed one-kilometre circuit to win the 50,000-franc Grand Prix d’Aviation. On 30 October 1908 he made Europe’s first cross-country flight, 27 km from Bouy to Reims. When Voisin sold an aircraft built to Farman’s specification to the Englishman Moore-Brabazon, Henri broke with him and began building his own designs; the Farman III flew in April 1909 and was copied across Europe.

Longhorns and Shorthorns

Henri’s aircraft carried the prefix HF, Maurice’s MF, and from 1912 the brothers’ businesses worked as one. Their factory at Boulogne-Billancourt, opened in 1911, and flying schools at Châlons and Chartres trained pilots for half of Europe. The MF.7 Longhorn and MF.11 Shorthorn became the standard trainers and reconnaissance aircraft of 1914. On 6 September 1914 a Japanese MF.11 from the seaplane carrier Wakamiya attacked the Austro-Hungarian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth in the first air-sea battle. Airco in Britain and Fiat’s SIA in Italy built Farmans under licence.

Goliath

The F.60 Goliath was designed in 1918 as a heavy bomber and was still in testing at the Armistice. Farman saw that its boxy fuselage could carry passengers. On 8 February 1919 a Goliath flew 12 passengers from Toussus-le-Noble to Kenley near Croydon in two and a half hours. The brothers founded their own airline, Lignes Aériennes Farman, which opened a weekly Paris–Brussels service on 22 March 1919, described as the world’s first international commercial air service. About 60 Goliaths were built in France and eight more under licence in Czechoslovakia. The airline later merged into Air France in 1933.

Nationalised

In the 1930s Farman built big four-engined F.220 bombers, the first flying on 26 May 1932, and record-seeking pressurised high-altitude machines. In 1936 France’s Popular Front government nationalised the aviation industry and Farman became part of SNCAC; Henri and Maurice retired. Their legacy flew on: on the night of 7 June 1940 a navy NC.223.4 named Jules Verne became the first Allied bomber to raid Berlin. The brothers revived the firm in 1941 until it was absorbed again in 1944, and Maurice’s son Marcel tried once more from 1952 until its final dissolution in 1956.

Factories

• Boulogne-Billancourt works · Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine — Opened 1911; partly destroyed by US bombing in 1943; absorbed by SNECMA in 1946
• Toussus-le-Noble and Châteaufort · Yvelines, south-west of Paris — Airfield base in the early 1930s and for the 1950s revival

People

• Henri Farman · co-founder, aviator and designer — 1874–1958; HF designs; took French nationality in 1937
• Maurice Farman · co-founder, aviator and designer — 1877–1964; MF designs; won the 1901 Pau Grand Prix; Aero-Club de France brevet no. 6
• Richard (Dick) Farman · co-founder — Eldest brother and business partner
• Marcel Farman · son of Maurice — Refounded SAUF in 1952; dissolved 1956

Records and firsts

• First circle by a European aeroplane, 10 November 1907
• First official one-kilometre closed circuit, 13 January 1908
• First cross-country flight in Europe, Bouy to Reims, 30 October 1908
• First weekly international commercial air service, Paris–Brussels, 22 March 1919
• First Allied bomber over Berlin, 7 June 1940