Background
Louis Charles Breguet was born in Paris on January 2, 1880.
Louis Charles Breguet was born in Paris on January 2, 1880.
He attended the Condorcet and Carnot lycées and the École Supérieure d'Électricité.
In 1905 he began work on a gyroplane (helicopter) with flexible wings, in collaboration with Charles Richet and his brother Jacques Breguet, which lifted itself and its pilot in 1907. His interest in airplanes began shortly after this, and he pioneered, with others, in the construction of metal aircraft before 1914. In his model of 1910, the wing had a single spar consisting of a steel tube of large diameter. His Bréguet-14 day bomber and reconnaissance airplane was made entirely of aluminum except for wooden wing ribs and fuselage fairings and the fabric covering. This bomber was a mainstay of the French Army in World War I and through the 1920's, and was used by 16 squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force. Breguet built several military and commercial airplanes and seaplanes, but returned to the gyroplane in 1935, working on a design which flew by a combination of blade flapping and feathering. He continued this work during the German occupation and after World War II went ahead with the development of commercial transports. He died on May 4, 1955, in Paris.
In 1902 Louis married Nelly Girardet, the daughter of painter Eugène Girardet. They had five children together.