Ferdinand Ferber was a French Army

French Army

The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

 captain who played an important role in the development of aviation during the early 1900's.

Aviation experiments

Ferber's interest in flight was the result of Otto Lillienthal's experimental gliders. During 1901 Ferber constructed a primitive copy of a Lilienthal glider, attempting to fly it from a launching tower. He became aware of the aeronautical experiments of the Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute was a French-born American railway engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided the Wright brothers with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying experiments. At his death he was hailed as the father of aviation and the heavier-than-air flying machine...

 as a result of reading an article in the Revue Scientifique published in the issue dated 1 June 1901. Ferber wrote to Chanute, and through him learnt of the experiments of the Wright Brothers

Wright brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...

, receiving a copy of the Wilbur Wright's paper "Some Aeronautical Experiments" which had been published in the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers in December 1901. Ferber then built a glider based upon photographs of the Wright's 1901 glider.

Ferber's 1902 glider resembled the Wright glider in being a two-bay biplane with a forward elevator, but the resemblance ends there. The construction was crude in the extreme, the wings consisting merely of a simple framework of bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

 loosely covered with fabric, entirely lacking the ribs which formed the wings of the Wright's glider into a lift-giving aerofoil section. Moreover there was no attempt at lateral control. The connection between lateral and directional control was the key discovery of the Wright Brothers, and although the 1901 glider lacked a rudder the use of wing warping

Wing warping

Wing warping was an early system for lateral control of a fixed-wing aircraft. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite directions...

 was clearly described in the paper by Wilbur Wright. Ferber's experiments with this aircraft were encouraging enough for him to build another very similar glider the following year. This differed principally in having a pair of triangular rudders mounted on the aft outboard interplane struts. This aircraft was then fitted with a 6hp (4 kW) Buchet engine, driving a pair of coaxially mounted propellers. Between September 1903 and October 1904 a number of attempts at flight were made, and he also constructed a tall latticework tower supporting a long counterbalanced arm from which the aircraft was suspended. Ferber wrote that trials of this machine "were completely useless, but drew public attention to aviation"

In 1908, Ferber founded the National Aviation League with the help of well-known physiologist René Quinton

Rene Quinton

René Quinton , also named French darwin, was a naturalist, physiologist and biologist.- Medicine :At the end of the 19th century, Quinton worked with Etienne-Jules Marey, Member of academy of medicine and president of the academy of sciences...

. Quinton was a member of a Parisian group of literary personalities called the "Forty-five," who honored achievements in literature, sciences and arts. In May 1908 Ferber addressed the group at Quinton's suggestion and after receiving a standing ovation for his accomplishments in aviation, Quinton was inspired to establish a 10,000 franc

French franc

The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...

s prize for the first person to achieve 5 minutes of flight without an engine (gliders).

Captain Ferber was killed on 22 September 1909 when a Voisin biplane he had bought ran into a ditch while taxying at speed.

Aircraft

• Ferber I
• Ferber II
• Ferber III
• Ferber IV
• Ferber V
• Ferber VI
• Ferber VII
• Ferber VIII
• Ferber IX