The inventor of the "black box"

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The pilot and manufacturer Colonel François Hussenot was a French engineer who was responsible for inventing the first flight recorder back in the late 1930s. The celebrated "black box" was manufactured by Safran Electronics & Defense (formerly Sagem) until 2005.

The École Polytechnique graduate François Hussenot began his career in 1935 as a test engineer at the Centre d'Essais de Matériels Aériens (CEMA) in Villacoublay, then at the Centre d'Essais en Vol (CEV) in Marignane. He specialized in studying, manufacturing and fine-tuning flight test instrumentation. In 1939, he designed a flight data recorder using photographs. Named the "Hussenographe", it is considered to be the forerunner of modern black boxes.

Sfim-Safran

After spending two years working as an engineer at the Centre d'Essais en Vol in Brétigny-sur-Orge, he founded, in 1947, along with his associate Marcel Ramolfo, from Société de Fabrication d'Instruments de Mesure (SFIM) in Massy (Essonne department). He patented a new recorder which projected parameters such as speed, altitude, vibrations and temperatures onto film. Very soon, SFIM experienced strong growth with the manufacturing of "HB" – for "Hussenot and Beaudouin" the name of the engineers who helped to develop the system – photographic flight recorders. In 1999, SFIM was acquired by Sagem, which is now Safran Electronics & Defense. Since 2010, the new facility in Massy houses "François Hussenot" R&D center, named after the inventor as a tribute.

Anecdote

In June 1940, fearful that the Germans would seize his invention, François Hussenot, posted in the Aquitaine region, decided to hide his machine… by burying it in a dune in the Arcachon basin. Unfortunately, the machine would never see the light of day again, as it was swallowed up by the incessant movement of sand and wind.

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