Marie André Marcel Riffard (30 November 1886 – 9 July 1981) was a French aeronautical engineer. He designed fighter aircraft and air racers, as well as airplanes for postal delivery and medical transport. He also designed racing cars and land-speed record cars for Panhard and Renault. Riffard has been called the "Father of modern aviation".
Early years On 14 July 1883, French engineer Edmond Riffard arrived in Argentina with his wife Gabrielle Guy de Riffard and their son Pablo. The family settled in Villa Ocampo, Santa Fe Province. Edmond had moved to Argentina to build the Tacuarendí sugar mill, and while there also introduced both the telephone and paper money to the country, and established the French Chaco Distillery in partnership with compatriot George Brosset. While in Argentina the Riffards had two more children; Irma, in 1885, and Marcel, on 30 November 1886. One year after the Baring crisis of 1890, the family returned to France, arriving on 14 July 1893. Eventually there were five children in the family.
Marcel Riffard attended school at the Lycée J.B. Dumas in Alès. During the mathematics portion of the 1903 Concours général, he provided seven solutions to a problem for which Henri Poincaré had only given five. For this he won the Grande Médaille d'Argent, the Prix de la Société Scientifique et Littéraire, and the Premier Prix au Concours Généraux, Section Mathématiques. He also pursued athletics, going to Paris in July 1905 for the Critérium Interscolaire d'Athlétisme, where he finished third.
Riffard studied in preparation for admission to l'École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne at the Lycée Carnot in the city of Saint-Étienne but did not pursue a Grande école. Instead he worked for tire manufacturer La Société des Pneumatiques Samson from October 1905 to October 1907. From 10 October 1907 until 28 September 1909 Riffard performed his national military service with the 38th field artillery regiment, assigned to the 7th battery detachment in Bastia, Corsica.
Aircraft Early work In 1907, at the age of 21, Riffard built a powered scale model monoplane that was able to reach a speed of .
Riffard designed the structure for a biplane commissioned by Auguste Witzig and built by Fernand Lioré. The craft was shown without an engine in September 1908, and was flown by Guillaume Busson in the Bétheny competition in August 1909.
In 1909, Riffard developed a scale model of an electrically controlled variable-pitch propeller.
On 1 January 1910, Riffard conceived of and designed the first aircraft built entirely of metal. This pusher monoplane used pressed steel for the structure and aluminum for the skin. It was built in collaboration with aviators Georges Legagneux and Robert Martinet. It may have only been ground tested.
In 1912 Riffard designed the first medical aircraft, built with the help of Legagneux and Martinet. He also invented an anti-icing device and a thermoregulator flap for water-cooled engines.
On 2 August 1914, Riffard was recalled to active military duty with the 38th artillery regiment, and in 1916 was transferred to the Groupe Aviation du Bourget.
Louis Bréguet Aviation In 1917 Riffard moved to Bréguet Aviation, established by Louis Charles Bréguet at Villacoublay. Riffard was head of the Bréguet Design Office at Vélizy until 1923. One of his first projects was to adapt an early turbocharger from the company founded by Auguste Rateau to the Bréguet 14.
RM-1 At Bréguet in 1917, Riffard and Gabriel Mollard worked on a design for a rocket-powered military biplane called the RM-1. Its chief armament was a single rocket-propelled missile.
Leviathan Riffard designed the quad-engined Leviathan XXII, and developed the engage/disengage mechanism that allowed one engine in each of the dual-engine Bréguet-Bugatti assemblies to be shut down while the other continued to drive the shared propeller.
Louis de Monge From 1923 to 1926, Riffard was the technical director for the company run by Belgian engineer Louis de Monge at Issy-les-Moulineaux. He designed two fighter aircraft while with de Monge, but the company failed before they could be produced. He also designed a tri-engined transatlantic flying wing passenger transport that progressed to the flying model stage.
Lioré et Olivier In 1926, Riffard became head of the Clichy design office of Société de Constructions Aéronautiques d'Hydravions Lioré et Olivier, a flying boat builder based in Levallois-Perret. He remained there until 1930.
While there he contributed to the design of several aircraft, including the LeO.122, LeO.20, LeO H-18, LeO H-180, LeO H-24, and the LeO H-242.
Marcel Bloch From 1930 to 1931, Riffard was the general manager of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch.
While with Marcel Bloch, he completed a design that had been started by Bloch's previous designer Pineau, resulting in the Bloch MB.60.
Omnium Métallurgique Industriel From 1931 to 1932, Riffard worked at Omnium Métallurgique Industriel (OMI), an engine builder whose products for motorcycles and aircraft were sold under the Chaise name. At OMI, Riffard was tasked with testing their first inverted cylinder aircraft engine. It was also during his time at OMI that Riffard designed an aircraft called the MR-300 intended specifically to compete in the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. The aircraft's side profile was wing-shaped, and may have acted as a lifting body. While one reference says that it was powered by an flat-sixteen engine, others say that it was a Chaise flat-8 designated 8C, producing .
Also at OMI at this time was Russian aeronautical engineer Georges Otfinovsky, with whom Riffard would work on several designs later at Caudron.
Caudron Riffard became Technical Director and Chief Engineer of l'Association Aéroplanes Caudron Frères, at 52 rue Guynemer in Issy-les-Moulineaux on 1 March 1932." Otfinovsky moved to Caudron at or near the same time.
In 1933, Pierre Cot, the Ministre de l'Air of France, asked Renault to assume control of Caudron. When Renault acquired control of Caudron, Riffard was part of the deal. La Société Anonyme des Avion Caudron, commonly called Caudron-Renault, was established on 30 June 1933.
Riffard's sojourn at Caudron was a productive time for him, resulting in 73 prototypes.
Several of the aircraft designed by Riffard for Caudron featured a wing design called the "aile crocodile" ("crocodile wing"), which had intrados flaps with split trailing edges.
Riffard's aircraft designs for Caudron include the following:
Simoun
Riffard designed the Simoun, a series of four-place monoplanes that were popular as private tourers, mail service carriers, and military liaison aircraft. The name is French for the "Simoom" wind that blows across the Eastern Mediterranean and Arabic Peninsula. The first flight of a Simoun took place in 1934.
The Air Bleu service began on 10 July 1935 from Le Bourget, using Caudron Simouns to transfer mail across France.
In December 1935 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and André Prévot piloted the Simoun C.630 with registry F-ANRY in the Paris-to-Saïgon air race. The pair crashed in the Sahara desert, and were eventually rescued by Bedouin tribesmen. Saint-Exupéry later wrote about the experience in his 1939 book "Wind, Sand and Stars", and used it as the inspiration for his novella, "The Little Prince". In 1936 Saint-Exupéry acquired the Caudron Simoun C.635 registered F-ANXK. He crashed this plane in Guatemala, and remained in a coma for eight days.
On 30 December 1936, at 7:23am, French pilot Maryse Bastié took off from Dakar in a modified Caudron Simoun C.635, registered F-ANXO, that she had christened "Jean Mermoz" for the deceased aviator. When she landed in Natal, Brazil twelve hours and five minutes later, she set a new record for fastest crossing of the Atlantic ocean at an average speed of . On 19 December 1937, pilot Maryse Hilsz took off from Istres in a Simoun C.635 registered F-AQDY with the goal of setting a new distance record. To reduce fuel consumption, the original 6Q engine was replaced by a less powerful engine from the C.620. Forced to land in Alexandria, she still beat a previous record set by André Japy in a Caudron Aiglon. From December 29 to 30, 1938, Hilsz set a new distance record for Class C aircraft by flying from Istres to Port-Etienne, Mauritania.
Goéland
The Riffard-designed Caudron Goéland ("Gull") was a trainer/transport aircraft that debuted in 1934. Powered by twin Renault engines, it was able to carry pilot, copilot, and six passengers at speeds of up to . Goélands were operated by several companies, as well as both the French Armee de l'Air and the German Luftwaffe during the occupation. More than 1700 examples were built.
Aiglon
The C.600 Aiglon ("Eaglet") was a tandem cockpit light touring monoplane. It had its first flight in March 1935. Popular with private owners and flying clubs, several Aiglons were requisitioned by the French government during WWI, with some serving as liaison aircraft.
Typhon
The Caudron C.640 Typhon was a general use monoplane designed primarily as a long-distance postal carrier. It first flew in 1935.
C.710 series
This was a series of fighter aircraft designed by Riffard that included the C.714 Cyclone. The prototype, model C.710, first flew on 18 July 1936.
Air racers Some of the most famous aircraft designed by Riffard at Caudron were the air racers. Some series included both racing and fighter models. Among the racers, three different series of tandem two-seat Grand Sport aircraft were named Rafale, which means "gust" in French.
Caudron racing aircraft made several appearances in the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe air race, and came to dominate the third series of these competitions that began in 1933.
During the pre-race trials for the 1933 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe, pilot Ludovic Arrachart was killed when his Caudron C.360 crashed at Maisons near Chartres. Raymond Delmotte's Caudron C.362 took second place in the race with a speed of . In the 1934 Coupe, Caudrons finished 1-2-3, with Maurice Arnoux first in a Caudron C.450 at , Louis Masotte second in a Caudron C.366 Atalante at , and Albert Monville third in a Caudron C.460 at . In the 1935 race, Riffard-designed planes finished first and second, with Yves Lacombe first in a Caudron C.450 with a speed of , ahead of Maurice Arnoux second in a Caudron C.461 in with a speed of . In the fourth Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe held in 1936, the only planes entered were Caudrons. Five were entered, but only three competed.
After staging an air race between French aviators Hilsz and Hélène Boucher on 12 June 1934, Caudron signed Boucher on as their factory pilot. Already the holder of a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) altitude record, Boucher went on to fly a variety of Riffard-designed Caudron aircraft, including the C.430, C.450 and C.530. On 8 July 1934, Boucher and her passenger Marie-Louise Becker placed second in the Douze Heures d'Angers in a Caudron C.530 registered F-ANAO, behind the team of Lacombe and Trivier, also in a Caudron. During this race Boucher broke the women's and men's speed record over 1,000 km in a light aircraft with a speed of . On 8 August 1934 Boucher set a new speed record for a distance of 100 km with a speed of , and raised her previous record for 1000 km by posting a speed of . On 11 August 1934, she set a new world record for speeds over a 3 km course, at . By mid-August 1934, she held seven international records. Boucher died on 30 November 1934 after her C.430, registered F-AMVB, crashed at La Croix du Bois near Guyancourt.
Pilot Michel Détroyat shocked the American air racing establishment in 1936 by easily winning both the Greve Trophy and the Thompson Trophy, in a Caudron C.460 Rafale. The Rafale faced American aircraft with engines having more than double the displacement and power of the French plane.
Other Caudron designs