  antoinette was a french manufacturer of light petrol engines. antoinette also became a pioneer-era builder of aeroplanes before world war i, most notably the record-breaking monoplanes flown by hubert latham and renÃ© labouchÃ¨re. based in puteaux, the antoinette concern was in operation between 1903 and 1912. the company operated a flying school at chalons for which it built one of the earliest flight simulators. ==private engine-building venture== antoinette began as a private venture led by the engineer lÃ©on levavasseur and financed by jules gastambide, who owned an electricity generating station in algeria. while on holiday with gastambide and his family in 1902, levavasseur expressed his interest in the emerging field of aviation and proposed the development of light, powerful engines for use in aircraft. levavasseur then suggested to gastambide's daughter, antoinette, that the engines should be named after her. gastambide financed the venture. levavasseur patented the v8 engine configuration that year.gerard, les moteurs et aÃ©roplanes antoinette, p.2 by 1904, most of the prize-winning speedboats in europe were powered with antoinette engines.villard, contact!, p.51 during this time, he designed engines of various configurations of up to thirty-two cylinders.gerard, les moteurs et aÃ©roplanes antoinette, p.4 ==antoinette incorporates== antoinette was incorporated in 1906, with gastambide as president and levavasseur as technical director. aviation pioneer louis blÃ©riot was the vice-president . antoinette displayed an automobile with a ,  v8 engine in the 1906 paris salon de l'automobile of that year.hemmings motor news: eight is enough the company's primary business was the sale of engines to aircraft builders. their engines were used in the santos-dumont 14-bis of 1906, paul cornu's rudimentary helicopter of 1907, the voisin biplane that was modified and piloted by henri farman who used it to complete europe's first 1 kilometer circular flight in january 1908, and other significant pioneer aircraft. the farman-voisin biplane was powered by a water-cooled antoinette v8 engine which developed  at 1,400 rpm. it used an early form of direct gasoline injection and weighed only 190 pounds in working order, including the water-filled cooling system. the engine block was cast aluminium, holding removable steel cylinders.{{cite book |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title=the aero manual 1910 |archivedate= |accessdate=
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