Levavasseur, Léon

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Steam and internal combustion engines

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b. 8 January 1863 Cherbourg, France

d. 26 February 1922 Puteaux, France

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French designer of Antoinette aeroplanes and engines.

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Léon Levavasseur was an artist who became an electrical engineer and in 1902 Technical Director of a firm called Société Antoinette, headed by Jules Gastambide (Antoinette being the name of Gastambide's daughter). Levavasseur's first aeroplane, built in 1903, was a bird-like machine which did not fly. The engine showed promise, however, and Levavasseur developed it for use in motor boats from 1904. In 1906 he produced two Antoinette aero-engines, one of 24 hp (18 kW) and the other 50 hp (37 kW), which were used by Alberto Santos-Dumont and several other early designers. In February 1908 Levavasseur produced a tractor (propeller at the front) monoplane, the Gastambide- Mengin I, for two of his colleagues. Flown by a mechanic, this managed several short hops before it crash-landed. It was rebuilt and improved to become the Antoinette II and later in the year became the first monoplane to complete a circular flight. Levavasseur then went on to produce a series of Antoinette monoplanes which, with the monoplanes of Louis Blériot, challenged the pusher biplanes of Voisin and Farman. The rivalry between the Antoinettes and Blériots made headlines in 1909 when they were being prepared to win the Daily Mail prize for the first flight across the English Channel. Hubert Latham took off in his Antoinette on 19 July 1909, but his engine failed and he had to be rescued from the sea. On 25 July Louis Blériot took off in his Blériot No. XI and won both the prize and worldwide acclaim. In 1911 Latham flew his Antoinette across the Golden Gate at San Francisco. The same year Levavasseur built a revolutionary streamlined three-seater monoplane with cantilever wings (no wire bracing), but this Monobloc Antoinette failed; with it the line of Antoinettes came to an end.

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Further Reading

C.H.Gibbs-Smith, 1965, The Invention of the Aeroplane 1799–1909, London (provides details of the Antoinette monoplanes).

F.Peyrey, 1909, Les Oiseaux artificiels, Paris (a contemporary account of the early machines).

JDS