Henry Farman's First Circular Flight in Europe

On January 13, 1908, the aviator Henry Farman flew the first officially observed one-kilometer circular flight in Europe, taking off and returning to his starting point at Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris. He made the flight in a Voisin biplane, a pusher aircraft of the type then at the forefront of European experimentation.

By completing a closed circuit under official observation, Farman won the Deutsch-Archdeacon Grand Prix d'Aviation, a prize of 50,000 French francs established to reward the first such flight. The achievement was a milestone for European aviation, which had been lagging behind the Wright brothers' progress in the United States.

Farman went on to become one of the most important figures in early European flight, both as a record-setting pilot and as the founder, with his brothers, of a major aircraft-manufacturing concern. His 1908 circuit helped ignite the intense competition and rapid technical advance that characterized European aviation in the years before the First World War.