1868-1911
Maurice Guffroy was born in Lille in northern France on
October 8th, 1868. He appears to have spent much of his life in the
colonies, for example exploring and mapping the Guianas between 1895
and 1901. He was an active balloonist and won a first and a third prize
in precision landing contests during the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris.
He was one of the first to be granted a French balloonist license by
the French Aéro-Club, number 17 issued in 1901.
In June 1908 pioneer airplane constructor Robert Esnault-Pelterie had
an accident in one of his REP machines. His injuries, painful although
not life-threatening, made him lose confidence in his ability to
control an airplane. Guffroy was entrusted with testing the new REP 2
bis model and made his first flight on February 15th, 1909. He made
several successful flights during the following months and when the
Reims meeting approached he was REP's undisputed first pilot.
The Grande Semaine of Reims was an embarrassing experience for the REP
team. After Guffroy's failure to make his underpowered single-wheel
machine leave the muddy ground on the first day Esnault-Pelterie
retired all the four machines that he had entered. After this debacle
Esnault-Pelterie refocussed on more practical designs. Guffroy made
some more test flights until early 1910, but it seems he abandoned
aviation soon afterwards.
He died in Albina in Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) in 1911, in February
or March, and from either accident or a tropical disease, depending on
which source you read. At his death he was director of the Compagnie
des Mines d'Or de la Guyane Hollandaise (the gold mining company of
Dutch Guiana) and an adviser on international trade for the French
government.
He never qualified for a "Brevet de Pilote".
Maurice Guffroy participated in the following air race
meetings:
- Reims 1909