The company was established in 1913 by
Louis Schreck and
André Beaumont.
Louis Schreck was technical director of the French subsidiary in
Argenteuil. The first activity of the company was the development of a
flying boat hull derived from
Donnet-Leveque Type A. The aircraft, a biplane with a single engine mounted between the wings with a pusher propeller, was originally called FBA-Leveque, then it was renamed FBA Type A. It is from this first model that the manufacturer derived various models that would be used by the forces of
Triple Entente: France, United Kingdom and the
Russian Empire. During
World War I, the company produced large numbers of small flying boats for the navies of France,
Russia,
Italy, and the
United Kingdom. Following the war, the company was reorganised as
Hydravions Louis Schreck FBA, a purely French concern, and continued building aircraft in the same class. One of these, the
FBA 17, sold in quantity. In 1922,
Émile Paumier became technical director and developed the brand models from the FBA model Type 10. From the Type 19 on, the company abandoned the conventional configuration with pusher propeller to finally adopt the tractor propeller. The company could not repeat its wartime successes. The lack of orders, especially for civilian models, led to production ceasing in 1931. In 1934, on the verge of collapse, the workshops of the factory were sold to
Bernard; the latter company was also struggling and itself failed later in 1935. ==Aircraft==