thumb|right|The Giffard dirigible, created by Giffard in 1852

thumb|right|A- Steam from boiler, B- Needle valve, C- Needle valve handle, D- Steam and water combine, E-Water feed, F- Combining cone, G- Delivery nozzle and cone, H- delivery chamber and pipe, K- Check valve

Baptiste Jules Henri Jacques Giffard (8 February 182514 April 1882) was a French engineer. In 1852 he invented the steam injector and the powered Giffard dirigible airship.

Career

Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector and the Giffard dirigible, an airship powered with a steam engine and weighing over . It was the world's first passenger-carrying airship (then known as a dirigible, from French).

Giffard was granted a patent for the injector on 8 May 1858. Unusually, he had thoroughly worked out the theory of this invention before making any experimental instrument, having explained the idea in 1850. Others had worked on using jets, particularly Eugène Bourdon who patented a very similar device in 1857.

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File:Captive balloon of Henri Giffard over Paris 1878.jpg|Balloon of Henri Giffard over Paris rooftops, 1878.

File:GiffardAirship.JPG|A model of the Giffard Airship at the London Science Museum.

File:Ballooning Bronze Medal Paris 1878 Giffard..jpg|Medal of Giffard's balloon over Paris in 1878.

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Bibliography

  • , ...Correspondence, notes, design drawings, broadsides, newspapers, printed illustrations, articles about Giffard, and newspaper clippings relating chiefly to Giffard's exhibition of a large captive balloon in the courtyard of the Tuileries in Paris in 1878. Includes his notes on hydrogen gas and design drawings for balloons...
  • - discusses Henri Giffard's first powered flight, LiveScience.com, 4 March 2008