As chief test pilot for the British aircraft manufacturer Supermarine, he won the 1922 Schneider Trophy air race and briefly held the world record for the fastest speed in a seaplane.

Biard was born in Surrey, where his father worked as a public school teacher, and spent time as a child on his mother's native island of Jersey, where he was educated at Victoria College.

Biard joined Supermarine after being demobilised from the Royal Air Force, the successor to the RNAS, in 1919, and became a close colleague of R. J. Mitchell, the company's chief designer.

He was the second of three sons of Raymond Biard,[5][c] a Frenchman working as an assistant French master at Charterhouse School,[7] and Lucy Constance Delmaine, a native of St Helier, Jersey.

[6] Henry Biard learned to swim at the age of four, and was described as a "water baby" in a 1958 article in The Liverpool Echo; he remained a keen swimmer and fisherman throughout his life.

[6] They left the island in 1908: the Jersey historian Barrie Bertram has suggested that this was a consequence of a criminal charge made against Lucy Delmaine in May, by which she was accused of taking an eighteen-year-old woman, Elizabeth Mary Price, into her home "for the purposes of debauchery" with her eldest son, Raymond, who was nineteen.

The following day, he tricked his way onto a Bristol Boxkite that had been warmed up for flight, took off, piloted the aircraft for a mile across the aerodrome, picked up a mechanic, and flew back safely.

[7] He recounted in 1934 that, during his time at Upavon, the school's assistant commandant – the future head of the Royal Air Force, Hugh Trenchard – took him as a passenger in a test-flight of an experimental aircraft: the flight ended in a crash, from which both escaped unhurt.

Hobbs, later a decorated member of the Royal Canadian Air Force,[21] piloted the Supermarine Sea Lion I for the 1919 Schneider Trophy, an annual speed trial for seaplanes.

Biard accompanied Hobbs's team and flew spectators around the bay in one of Supermarine's flying boats for a price of three guineas (£3.3s, equivalent to £142 in 2018),[22] described by the historian Ralph Pegram as "a huge sum at the time".

[34] Biard made these flights in a Supermarine Sea Eagle, initially landing in L'Ancresse Bay; later services would fly to the island's capital, Saint Peter Port.

[45] At the time of the Italian announcement, the Sea Lion II – which was given the number N.157 – had not yet been air-tested: in its first test flight, Biard's engine cut out due to an air lock, and he was forced to make an emergency landing.

[47] While the French entry was forced to withdraw, citing their inability to bring their aircraft to Naples in time for the revised date, the Supermarine team were delivered by what the competition's historian Edward Eves calls a "patriotic" coming-together of various British firms: the General Steam Navigation Company, whose management included friends of Scott-Paine, redirected their SS Philomel to transport the crew and aircraft, while Castrol, directed by its founder Charles Cheers Wakefield, donated the team's oil and provided additional money towards its undertakings.

[48] During one test flight, over Mount Vesuvius, Biard was unexpectedly lifted 2,000 ft (610 m) on a thermal, but the aircraft's unusually good manoeuvrability allowed him to escape without incident.

The company had sold the Sea Lion II to the Air Ministry following Biard's victory the previous year, but borrowed it back and tasked Mitchell with increasing its speed by 10 kn (12 mph).

However, the Schneider's propeller spinner fell off during a test flight, forcing the pilot, Walter Longton, to land it on a golf course, where it overturned and was too badly damaged to enter the race.

On his third test flight, during navigability trials on 27 September, Kenworthy crashed into the water, spent almost a minute underwater and lost consciousness when pulled onto a rescue boat; his life was saved by his wife, who gave him artificial respiration.

[78] According to the historian Constance Babington Smith, Biard was "frankly awestruck" by the elegance of the Supermarine S4, and its contrast with what she calls "the galumphing flying-boats of the era, with their clutter of struts and wires".

[79] Eves, by contrast, writes that Biard "heartily disliked" the limited visibility afforded by the aircraft and was, like most pilots of his era, unfamiliar with flying monoplanes.

[81] During the crossing from England, aboard SS Minnewaska, Biard broke his wrist playing tennis on the deck; after arriving in the United States, he caught influenza for the first time in his life.

[88] Mitchell had positioned himself on a speedboat – owned by Louis Mountbatten, the future Viceroy of India – and put on his swimming trunks underneath his suit in preparation for a possible rescue, but the boat broke down.

Biard withdrew to the team's base at the Southern Hotel, with concussion and having broken two ribs and rebroken his wrist: he played no part in the following day's race.

[89] The United States Army's James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, who would later be awarded the Medal of Honor for his 1942 raid on Japan, won the race, maintaining an average speed of 232 mph (373 km/h).

[25] Later experiments using a scale model in a wind tunnel were generally inconclusive, but suggested that airflow over the wings may have interfered with the aircraft's elevators and tailplanes, causing aileron flutter.

[109] During a demonstration flight, watched by Mitchell and Supermarine's directors, the aircraft's engine failed in mid-air; Biard made an emergency landing, crashing through a hedge, from which he escaped unhurt.

[109] The aircraft had been designed for the Royal Aero Club's Two-Seater Light Aeroplane Competition, held at Lympne in Kent during late September and early October 1924, which carried a prize of £2,000 (equivalent to £144,084 in 2023).

[110] The Air Ministry criticised the Sparrow's design, particularly that of its landing gear and controls, as lacking attention to detail and as limiting the pilot's view from the cockpit;[111] the aircraft was subsequently eliminated from the Lympne trial when a connecting rod in its engine failed: the engine which was fitted to replace it initially failed to start, then seized in mid-air, forcing Biard to make another emergency landing.

[i] The aircraft, 130 pounds (59 kg) heavier and 7 miles per hour (11 km/h) slower than the Sparrow I,[114] was forced to land in poor weather before passing the start line for the race on 12 September: Biard had noticed that its rivets were becoming loose and that the wings were in danger of falling off.

[115] On 12 March 1928, he witnessed, along with Mitchell, the death of his close friend Samuel Kinkead, an ace and former RNAS pilot, while attempting to set a speed record in the Supermarine S5.

[35] The Air Yacht was purchased in 1932 by an American client, June Jewell James: she contracted Biard to fly it for her on a cruise of the Mediterranean, though he was forced to withdraw halfway through the voyage for an operation on his stomach injury from the 1925 Schneider Trophy crash.