French Destroyers Torpilleurs D’escadre and Contre-Torpilleurs 1922-1956, Wydawnictwa anglo i rosyjskojęzyczne
French Defense The Solid Rubinstein Variation - H. Langrock, wg DATY DODANIA
French Battleships 1922-1956, Wydawnictwa anglo i rosyjskojęzyczne
French Fortifications 1715-1815, fortyfikacje-teoria
French Verb Tenses, Practice Makes Perfect
French Verb Drills, Jezyki obce
French Cinema - A Students Guide, Film
Fine-Home-Building-25-Years-of-Great-Building-Tips-Malestrom, Building and Architecture
Flying Legends of World War II Archive and Colour Photos of Famous Allied Aircraft, Wydawnictwa anglo i rosyjskojęzyczne
Formalności po Ślubie, Nauka, wiedza, porady, Pisma urzędowe
French Aeroplanes Before the Great War, Lotnictwo
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]BEFORE THE GREAT WAR
Including Many Rare Photos from the Musee de I'Air et de I'Espace
Octave Gilbert testing his 1909 glider as an unmanned kite. Note the hammock slung between the wings from
which he planned to control his machine. (Courtesy of the Musee de I 'Air et de I 'Espace/Le Bourget-France)
Leonard E> Opdycke
Schiffer Military History
Atglen, PA
FRENCH AEROPLANES
Acknowledgments
I dreamed of this project more than 15 years ago, and Michel
Benichou, the editor of the French aviation magazine then titled
Le
Fanatique de VAviation,
also became excited about it. Together we
began surveying books, magazines, catalogs, patents; we checked out
the libraries of aviation museums in Europe and North America. Af-
ter some time, Michel felt pressed by time and other responsibilities,
and for the past 10 years or so I continued the work on my own. The
current text and photographs represents some of his work along with
the contributions of many others, as noted under Credits, below, in-
terleaved with mine. Further special mention should be made of the
assi stance of Stephane Nicolaou and the staff and friends at the Musee
de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget, and of the enthusiastic support
for lo, these many years by the membership of World War I Aeroplanes,
Inc, who have expressed their eagerness to hear about this project, to
assist with it where possible, and finally - we hope! - to purchase the
completed product. And I hope you the readers get as much joy from
studying this outpouring of aeronautical invention as I did.
Credits, primarily for assistance with the photographs, but also for
further information, and encouragement of all kinds.
So many people have contributed to this work that it is difficult
or impossible to do each one proper justice. Some have worked to
answer questions; some have donated advice; some have donated
photographs or drawings or original or xeroxed material; some have
donated time in scanning materials or proof-reading mine. The num-
ber of hours which my friends have contributed to this book is incon-
ceivable. Thank you, one and all.
Ray Atkinson
Paul Badre
Michel Benichou
Roily Bliss
Peter Bowers
JM Bruce
Hugo Byttebier
James Davilla
Gilbert Deloisis
Nicholas Forder
George Fuller
Frederick Freeman
Bill Hannan
Phil Jarrett
William Lewis
Nigel Mills
Stephane Nicolau
Robert Owens
Guy Roberty
Jean-Louis Rosman
William Sayer
Wesley Smith
D'Alt Swift
John WR Taylor
Bruce J Vander Mark
Henry S Villard
Beverly Williams
Harry Woodman
Dedication
To my dear wife Sandy, who made our visits to Paris a joy after my day's work at
the Musee de l'Air; and whose steady enthusiasm and support and advice - and
delight! - and proofing - made this book possible.
Book Design by Robert Biondi.
Copyright © 1999 by Leonard E. Opdycke.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 98-87946.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any forms or by any means
- graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage and retrieval
systems - without written permission from the copyright holder.
"Schiffer," "Schiffer Publishing Ltd. & Design," and the "Design of pen and ink well" are reg-
istered trademarks of Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
Printed in China.
ISBN: 0-7643-0752-5
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Foreword
by JM Bruce
_L rom early times there was something about aerial flight
that captured the imagination of the French nation with a unique
fervency. Practical ballooning had begun in France with the
work of the Montgolfier brothers, but the idea of flight in a
heavier-than-air machine was ever-present. Although the pio-
neering work of Sir George Cayley at the beginning of the 19th
century in England seems to have been unknown in France,
early thoughts on heavier-than-air flying machines in the latter
half of that century were pursued in that country by a fair num-
ber of French pioneers.
A focus for this thinking and aspiration was provided in
1863 by the talented and versatile novelist, essayist, caricatur-
ist and photographer Gaspard Felix Tournachon (1820-1910),
better known by his professional name Nadar. In that year he
founded La Societe d'Encouragement pour la Navigation
Aerienne with the specific objective of promoting heavier-than-
air flying machines. One who took up this cause enthusiasti-
cally was Victor Hugo, the celebrated poet and author, who
had already foreseen a great future for aerial navigation, pri-
marily as a cultural and commercial bond between nations. On
9 March 1869 he wrote a strongly supportive exhortation to
the contemporary aeronaut Gaston Tissandier, urging the de-
velopment of flight.
Among those I9th century French pioneers who pursued
various aeronautical activities and experiments were such men
such as Felix du Temple, Alphonse Penaud, Jean-Marie Le Bris,
Ferdinand Ferber, Clement Ader, Joseph Pline, Louis-Pierre
Mouillard, Victor Tatin. Some of their designs and ideas showed
remarkably advanced thinking, several anticipating, at least in
appearance, the configuration of aeroplanes of decades later.
All such ideas were frustrated by lack of supporting technolo-
gies, most notably in appropriate power units and fuels.
European aviation in general received a powerful fillip
when the Wright brothers demonstrated their aeroplane in 1908,
and showed the world what properly controlled mechanical
flight could be. The effect on France's pioneers was the more
dramatic because these demonstration flights were made in
France.
It was as if French national pride had been dealt a severe
blow: to many French citizens of the time the conquest of the
air and the development of mechanical flight was, or should
be, a French prerogative. A welcome restorative to the nation's
pride came in July 1909, when Louis Bleriot made the first
crossing of the English Channel in an aeroplane.
In the five years preceding the outbreak of World War I in
August 1914, an ever-growing army of determined French pio-
neers worked tirelessly on the building of many score types of
aeroplane. Their name was Legion, their creations wondrously
varied, their achievements - some of them, at least - heroic.
Development was quick, on the whole constructive, and for-
ward-looking. Although some designs could only be described
as bizarre, the aircraft created by such design teams as those of
Bleriot, Breguet, Morane-Saulnier and Nieuport pointed
aviation's way ahead with exemplary clarity. The best of them
outstripped the Wrights' biplane that had inspired the strong
growth of French aviation, but France had little time to enjoy
the restoration of its eminence in the field, for war came to
apply far sterner pressures on the country's aviation industry.
With such a vast range of designs and designers, of ideas
and achievements, the task of the historian bold enough to at-
5
tempt to chronicle them must be one of the most daunting and
demanding that could be imagined. Now, the debt owed by
students of aviation history to Leo Opdycke is correspondingly
huge, for this is what he has done; the pages that follow record
his many discoveries, and perpetuate many names that deserve
to be remembered in the history of aviation. This book has
been many years in the making: its size and scope are and will
be an enduring testimonial to the author's endurance, determi-
nation, percipience and competence quite as much as it is a
worthy monument to so many who toiled with such dedication
in the pre-1914 period to establish the foundations of aviation
in Europe.
6
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