GABRIEL VOISIN.
Gabriel Voisin, the elder of the two Voisin brothers, was born in 1879 at Belleville-sur-Saone, near the city of Lyons, France. He was educated as an architect, but early became interested in aeronautics, and engaged in gliding, stimulated by the achievements of Pilcher, in England, and Captain Ferber, in his own country. He assisted M. Archdeacon in his experiments on the Seine, often riding the gliders which were towed by the swift motor boats.
In 1906 he associated himself with his brother in the business of manufacturing biplane machines, and in March, 1907, he himself made the first long flight with a power-driven machine in Europe. This aeroplane was built for his friend Delagrange, and was one in which the latter was soon breaking records and winning prizes. The second machine was for Farman, who made the Voisin biplane famous by winning the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize of $10,000 for making a flight of 1,093 yards in a circle.
The Voisin biplane is distinctive in structure, and is accounted one of the leading aeroplanes of the present day.