Fabre Hydravion

Hydravion (French for seaplane/floatplane) was developed over a period of four years by Fabre, assisted by a former mechanic of Captain Ferdinand Ferber, named Marius Burdin, and Léon Sebille, a naval architect from Marseilles.

The wing, which had pronounced dihedral and whose leading edge was formed by an exposed Fabre beam, was mounted below the rear of the upper beam, and the Gnome Omega rotary engine driving a two-bladed pusher Chauvière propeller was mounted behind it.

[1] It successfully took off and flew for a distance of about 500 metres (1,600 ft) on 28 March 1910 at Étang de Berre, Martigues, Bouches-du-Rhône, France,[2] being the first seaplane in history.

He flew the floatplane successfully three more times that day and within a week he had flown a distance of 5.6 km (3.5 mi).

The restored example of the aircraft remains - the crashed Hydravion which was collected in 1922 and later restored and displayed by the Musée de l'air et de l'espace (French Air and Space Museum) at Le Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis),[7] and a replica, close to the location of the initial flight, at Marseille Provence Airport in Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône).Pegase n°17.