Planes and Choppers Photos

Brothers Louis and Jacques Bréguet collaborated with Professor Charles Richet to build the first helicopter to lift a man, in 1907. Their first aircraft was a 60 hp biplane in 1909. The Société des Avions Louis Breguet was formed in 1911, the beginning of 60 unbroken years of design and production. The company is especially known for its development of reconnaissance aircraft used by the French in WW1 and through the 1920s. One of the pioneers in the construction of metal aircraft, the Breguet 14 day bomber, perhaps the most famous French military aircraft of all time, was made almost entirely of aluminium. Over the years, Breguet aircraft set several records, such as the first non-stop crossing of the South Atlantic in 1927. In 1933 another Breguet made a 4,500-mile (7,200 km) flight across the Atlantic Ocean, the longest non-stop Atlantic flight up to that time. The Breguet company tried to avoid being nationalized by the 1936 French law, resulting in two of its factories being forcibly transferred to SNCAN and SNCAO. Under German occupation in WW2 the company built German-designed aircraft for the occupying power. After the war there came transport aircraft and helicopters, along with sailplanes. Anti-submarine aircraft were the Vultur and Alizé. Breguet also had a hand in the initial design of the SEPECAT Jaguar. However, control of the company passed by French government order to Dassault in 1971, forming AMD/BA which took control of the Breguet/Dornier Alpha Jet. The Breguet identity vanished in a name change to Dassault Aviation in 1990.