Sébastienne Guyot
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Sébastienne Guyot | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 26 April 1896 |
| Died | 21 August 1941 (aged 45)[1] |
| Alma mater | École Centrale Paris |
| Occupations | Engineer, Pilot |
Sébastienne Marie Henriette Guyot (26 April 1896 – 21 August 1941) was a French engineer who specialised in aerodynamic flying. A top athlete, she participated in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam in the 800 meters and was French Cross Country Champion in 1928. Arrested by the Nazis when returning from an attempt to rescue her brother from a prison camp in 1940, she died in 1941 in Paris as a result of her imprisonment.
Sébastienne Marie Henriette Guyot was born 26 April 1896 at Pont-‘l’Abbé in Finistère, Brittany. Her father worked as a mounted policeman, ultimately being promoted to the role of Adjutant-Chef. She had one elder brother George (1894-1982) who became a pilot in the First World War and decorated with the Légion d’Honneur in 1917. Her two younger brothers were Roger (1901- 1980) and René (1903–1977).[2]
Education
In the spring of 1917, Sébastienne Guyot was working as a teacher. Turning twenty-one meant she was now legally an adult and able to make her own decisions, financial or otherwise. She gave up teaching and in October 1917 enrolled at the Lycée Jules Ferry in Paris, which ran classes to help women to prepare for the 1918 competition for entry into Central School of Paris, which had just permitted women to join their classes (as long as they sat in the front row). She came fifty-seventh out of 425 successful candidates passing the examination to enter the Central School of Paris. She chose to study mechanics, which included electrical engineering. By the end of the first year only 262 engineering students remained, with only 243 actually graduating in 1921. She ranked 45th of 243 graduates.[2][3]
Career in engineering
After graduation, Guyot moved into working in aviation. She may have been inspired by her older brother George’s experiences during the First World War, when he fought first as an aviation observer, got shot down and later trained and flew as a pilot, earning the Légion d’Honneur.[2]
Guyot initially worked in two small companies, the "Ateliers de construction de l'Ouest" and then at the "Établissements Lumière" company from c.1922 through to 1928. The Lumiere aeroplane company was set up by Louis de Monge, a Belgian engineer living in Paris, to design aircraft.[4] Guyot worked on the company's small twin-engine aircraft, launched in 1924, although much of the company's work was to undertake aeronautical research projects for the French government.
In 1929 Guyot moved to work as an aeronautical engineer at the "Hydravions Lioré & Olivier", a much larger company, which designed and manufactured seaplanes and military aircraft, including the LeO 45. She remained there until 1935, working on fuselages and hulls of several seaplanes, and in collaboration with designers, Paul Asantchéef and André Violleau, who thought highly of her.[2]
In 1932, Guyot learnt to fly and bought a second-hand light plane, a Farman 231 with lowered wings, two-seater tandem roadster, Renault 95 horsepower engine, maximum speed around 186 km / h12.[3] It was registered number F-AJZN and had a decal of two dogs on its side.[5]
Around 1932 Guyot started working on the engineering of rotary blades for rotor craft. A 1933 record of a helicopter named "Loth-Guyot" survives in the Air Section of the Historical Defence Service at Vincennes. Between 1932 and 1939, Guyot took out six patents in conjunction with engineer and entrepreneur William Arthur Loth (1888-1957),[6] concerned with improving the lift of the rotator blades. One involved the stabilisation of rotating lifting systems,[7] another a swivelling screw propeller.[8]
In 1936, the Arsenal de l'Aéronautique (usually called the Arsenal), a national military aircraft manufacturer, was established by the French Government at Villacoublay. In the dossier compiled by her brothers in 1947, making the case for her Resistance Medal, Sébastienne Guyot was described as "Head of the Helicopter Service at the Arsenal de l'Aéronautique", although details of her role there remain sketchy.[3] The Arsenal was moved to Toulouse during the Second World War. It was dissolved in the 1950s and its pre-war records have disappeared.
Sport
As well as her engineering and aeronautical career, Sébastienne Guyot was also a successful long-distance runner. In January 1927 she joined the Académie at the Val d´Or stadium, one of the few sports clubs which promoted women's sport in France at the time. She was French champion of female cross country running in 1928, and was selected to run the 800 metres at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, continuing to compete until 1932.[9]
