Ferdinand Ferber was born
in Lyon in 1862. After completing his education at the Ecole Polytechnique
he joined the French Army. He made steady
progress and eventually became commander of the Alpine Artillery Battery
at Nice.
Ferber
became interested in aviation after reading Otto Lilienthal's Bird
Flight as a Basis for Aviation. In 1899, like his mentor,
Otto Lilienthal, Ferber began producing
gliders.
Ferber 'Aéroplane
No.5
In 1902 Octave Chanute
sent descriptions and illustrations of the Wright brothers' gliders
and their wing warping technique. Ferber now replaced the Lilienthal
wing with a biplane type. However, the new glider was poorly made
and achieved little success.
Ferber, Aéroplane
No. 9
Ferber continued to experiment
and in 1904 Ferber built a biplane glider with a fixed tail. This
was an important innovation and solved most of the problems associated
with glider flight.
Ferdinand Ferber was killed
when he crashed his plane at Boulogne, 19th September 1909.
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