London paper, Paris hulls

Franco-British Aviation was founded in London in 1913, but its heart was always on the Seine. Its technical director was Louis Schreck, who ran the French subsidiary at Argenteuil, and its co-founder was the aviator André Beaumont. The firm’s first piece of work was a flying-boat hull derived from the Donnet-Lévêque designs, and from it grew the FBA Type A of 1913, sometimes called the FBA-Lévêque.

Flying boats for four navies

The war made FBA. It produced large numbers of small flying boats for the navies of France, Russia, Italy and Britain, single-engine pusher boats for coastal patrol and anti-submarine work. The Type B of 1915 ran to 150 examples and the Type C of 1916 to at least 78. After the Armistice the company was reorganised as a purely French concern, Hydravions Louis Schreck FBA, and in 1922 Émile Paumier became technical director.

The FBA 17 and the end

Peace brought FBA its biggest seller. The FBA 17 of 1923 was sold in quantity, 348 being built, and was licence-built in the United States as the Viking; FBA boats served from Brazil and Portugal to Poland and Denmark. But civil orders dried up. Production stopped in 1931, the FBA 310 of 1930 managing only nine examples, and in 1934 the workshops were sold to the Société des Avions Bernard, which itself failed in 1935.

Fábricas

• Argenteuil works · Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise — Main production site near Paris

Gente

• Louis Schreck · co-founder, technical director — Ran the Argenteuil operation
• André Beaumont · co-founder, aviator
• Émile Paumier · technical director from 1922