French Aeroplanes Before the Great War.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.

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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-

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.

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