hydroplane

This would be Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson CMG, DSO & Bar, AFC (8 July 1883 – 5 February 1931) the British naval aviation pioneer. You can read more about him here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rumney_Samson

best shot

This beauty of a photograph (together with the one before) shows the very early Short S.41 Tractor Biplane which was completed in March 1912 as a landplane. It was later converted as a seaplane, with two central floats and three streamlined air-bags (!). Commander Samson used the machine in the Naval Review in 1912. Source: C.H. Barnes. Shorts aircraft since 1900, page 80. Cheers Kees

Richard Arthur Norton and Varese2002: Thank you! When we update the source record, we will add the expanded descriptive information.

looks like the same model as"

Bio of Frank "Bert" Harriman www.hsgct.org/industry.htm

This machine is mis-identified. It was actually designed by J. Emery Harriman. Bert Harriman's flying boat was quite different.

Ronald Bailey Thanks for letting us know. Did you find something online attributing this flying boat to J. Emery Harriman? We have other Harriman Hydroaeroplanes attributed to Frank "Bert" Harriman, www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2787137430/

Here's more on the Remy Glider (Océano-glisseur Remy), along with additional photos. You'll see the finished prototype wasn't quite as sleek as the model captured in the photo above. The site is in French, but can be translated. Le Bateau du Havre en cartes postales - Histoire étonnante de l’Océanoglisseur le "Malgrétout", de l’ingénieur Remy (The Ships of Le Havre in Postcards - "Amazing story of the Oceanic Glider the "Malgrétout", the engineer Remy") Unfortunately, it would seem financial hardships would bring the project to an end. Here is a rough translation of the described conclusion of the Remy Glider's story:

"We remember the Océano slider that came to moor in Trouville, and its setbacks. Two men of the crew had fled off on the craft. They were overtaken and the aircraft returned to Le Havre where creditors sued the inventor. Later, he was moored at the wharf at Caudebec-en-Caux, where for six months he had been in receivership. On the order of the court, he has just been put on sale and awarded 7,000 francs to a mechanic from Le Havre. "

Here are additional stories about the effort, published in 1928 by Popular Science: "Plans to Cross Ocean in 60 Hours - Frenchman's Unsinkable Ocean-Glider Will Dash from France at Seventy Knots an Hour in a Few Weeks, Declared Inventor," by Edwin Ketchum, Popular Science, April 1928, Page 49.

Paris to New York in sixty hours! That is the mark set for himself by Adrien Remy, French inventor of a new type of speed boat, whose craft is shortly to undertake the trans-Atlantic passage. Already at a marine works on Saint-Ouen, near Paris, finishing touches are being applied to the full-size vessel that grew out of Remy's first plans. Early this April, if his project is carried through according to schedule, the craft will snort into New York harbor at a speed of seventy knots an hour!

"Sixty-Hour Trans-Atlantic Speed Boat Ready to Go," Popular Science, August 1928, Page 69.

Not long ago the little French town of Javel, on the rive Seine, looked and marveled at the strangest water craft it had ever seen. It had just been trundled on heavy trucks from the marine works at Saint-Ouens, and assembled on blocks for launching. among the curious crowd stood its inventor, Adrien Remy, watching his dream come true. It was an "ocean-glider," he said, with a tanklike engine room and cabin swung on a steel framework between two cigar-shaped pontoons that would carry it safely through the fiercest Atlantic storms he might encounter...

Looks like a small-scale model in this photo