George Messier
French inventor (1896–1933)
George Messier (1896–1933) was a French inventor, best known as the pioneer of hydraulically-operated landing gear for aircraft. He also specialized in hydropneumatic suspensions.
Biography
George Messier was a researcher in the chemical industry. In 1921, he studied pneumatic and oleopneumatic devices for shock absorption. In 1927, he founded, with Engineer René Lévy (1900-1993, later René Lucien-Lévy), son-in-law of Maurice Farman, the “Société française de matériel d'aviation” (French Aviation Equipment Company), specializing in landing gear and hydraulic systems for aviation.From 1925 to 1931, George Messier delivered more than 150 cars of his brand, the Messier “without springs.”
René Lévy owned a Farman F.200 aircraft, which he used to indulge in the new fashion of “tourist aviation,” visiting small, developing airfields such as the one in Évreux, where his landing in August 1929 from Toussus-le-Noble was noticed and reported by the specialized press. In May 1931, he accompanied his brother-in-law Marcel Farman to Deauville, where Farman landed his heavy 420 hp Farman aircraft on the barely completed runway, which was soggy and dotted with puddles, at the future Saint-Gatien-des-Bois airfield, which would not be inaugurated until the end of July. George Messier and René Lévy then entered the aeronautics industry, designing the Messier Laboratory Aircraft for the Landing gear of oleopneumatic suspension landing gear.
“George Messier” enters the record as french inventor (1896–1933). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what George, Messier and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“George Messier” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, George, Messier and French provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q908199. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1933, 1921 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Messier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.