1877 - 1965 (French Pilot's Licence No. 29)
Roger Sommer was born on August 4th, 1877 in Pierrepont in
the department Meurthe-et-Moselle in Lorraine. He came from a
textile industry family. At the age of 18 he was a successful
bicycle racer, winning the 200 km "Petit Ardennois" race
and becoming champion of eastern France over 100 km. He was
interested in mechanics from early days and graduated from an
engineer education at the École des Arts et Métiers. He built two
cars of his own construction and owned a powerful six-cylinder car.
Inspired by the Wrights he built a pusher biplane in 1908 and made
some short and not very successful flights in early 1909. He
instead bought a Farman plane in May 1909 and flew it for the first
time on July 4th. The next day he made a flight of half an hour and
soon made longer and longer flights. On August 7th he flew for 2 h
27:15, beating Wilbur Wright's world endurance record. He
participated with some success in the 1909 Reims, Spa and Doncaster
meetings, before selling his plane to Belgian Daniel Kinet in
December 1909.
Sommer started designing and building his own airplanes in 1910.
The first were basically modified Farmans, which in the hands of
Georges Legagneux and several other pilots were quite successful
during the 1910 meetings. It was reported that in the spring of
1910 he had orders for 58 planes. He kept on developing the
biplanes in several different versions, one of them carrying twelve
passengers using only a 70 hp engine in March 1911. He then
designed a monoplane that was successful in several meetings across
Europe in 1911 and 1912.
In 1913 Sommer closed his aviation business. The company had then
produced 182 planes and 36 pilots had qualified for their licenses
at its flying schools. The reason given was dropping sales, partly
caused by losing a competition for a big Army contract to Farman,
but Sommer watching the deaths of two employees in accidents was
probably a contributing factor.
In 1916 he returned to aviation as a licence manufacturer, but
after the end of the war he left the aviation field for good,
concentrating on the family felt manufacturing business in his home
town of Mouzon. The family company still exists. Under the name of
Sommer-Allibert S.A., it diversified into several fields of
industry, for example artificial lawns, plastic household products
and components for the car industry, before focussing on flooring
products under the name of Tarkett, one of its subsidiaries.
Roger Sommer passed away on April 14th, 1965 in Sainte-Maxime in
southern France.
He qualified for the French "Brevet de Pilote" No. 29 on
January 15th, 1910.
Sommer participated in the following air race meetings:
- Reims 1909
- Spa 1909
- Doncaster 1909