François Hussenot, Inventor of the flight recorder (1912-1951, Year of Entry: 1930)

Following his time at École Polytechnique, François Hussenot entered the French Applied Air Force Military School (École Militaire d’Application de l’Aéronautique) in Versailles, and then the National Higher French Institute of Aeronautics and Space (École Supérieure d’Aéronautique Supaéro). After receiving his pilot’s license and his aeronautical engineering degree, he joined the Marignane Flight Test Center in 1936. It was here that the inventor of black boxes for airplanes made his first flight recorder tests. Unlike modern black boxes, the ones he designed were based on photographs. He became Director of Methods at the Flight Test Center in Brétigny-sur-Orge, and co-founded both the French National Test Pilot School (École du Personnel Navigant, now the EPNER) and the Measuring Instruments Manufacturing Company (Société de Fabrication d’Instruments de Mesure). François Hussenot later received the Aeronautics Medal. He died at 39 in a test flight crash.