Félix Amiot

Who was Félix Amiot?

Félix Amiot was a French aircraft constructor.

Amiot was born in Cherbourg. His first aircraft was built in a Paris garage in 1913, but it was not until 1916, during the First World War, that he became seriously involved in construction. The Minister of Defence granted a contract to SECM, owned by the Wertheimer brothers, Paul and Pierre, together with Félix Amiot. SECM and Amiot functioned as sub-contractors and assemblers only, and did not produce their own designs.

After the war, SECM and Amiot constructed light aircraft. In 1929 the company made a large sum of money selling its interest in the Lorraine-Dietrich engine company to the government. In 1934, controversially, the Lorraine company, then known as SGA, was sold to Amiot-SECM and Marcel Bloch for a fraction of the price the government had paid five years earlier.

As well as SGA, and the original SECM-Amiot works at Le Bourget, Amiot controlled the CAN at Cherbourg. In the early phases of rearmament, Amiot scored a considerable success with the Amiot 143, widely considered one of the ugliest aircraft, along with its contemporary the Potez 542, to have flown.