The Bleriot-SPAD S.33 was a small French

airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...

developed soon after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The aircraft was a

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

of conventional configuration whose design owed much to the Blériot company's contemporary fighter designs such as the S.20. Four passengers could be accommodated in an enclosed cabin within the

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

, and a fifth passenger could ride in the open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

beside the pilot. A great success, the S.33 dominated its field throughout the 1920s, initially on CMA's Paris-London route, and later on continental routes serviced by Franco-Roumaine. One interesting development was a sole example converted by CIDNA to act as a blind-flying trainer. A set of controls was installed inside the passenger cabin, the windows of which had been blacked out.

Variants

;S.33:Single-engined passenger transport aircraft, powered by a Salmson CM.9 radial piston engine. 41 aircraft built. ; S.46:Improved version of the S.33, powered by a

Lorraine-Dietrich 12Da The Lorraine 12D, also referred to as Lorraine-Dietrich 12D, was a series of water-cooled V12 engines produced by the French company Lorraine-Dietrich. The first variant began production in 1917, and the engines were used to power bombers for the ...

engine. 38 built and sold to the

Franco-Roumaine Company CFRNA ("The French-Romanian Company for Air Transport"; french: Compagnie franco-roumaine de navigation aérienne; ro, Compania franco-română de navigație aeriană) was a French–Romanian airline, founded on 1 January 1920. Its name changed o ...

. ;S.48:A single S.33 temporarily re-engined in 1925, fitted with a

Lorraine 7M Mizar The Lorraine 7M Mizar, also called the Lorraine 240CV Mizar, was a seven-cylinder air-cooled radial engine designed and built in France during the 1920s and 1930s. Nominal power was given as at 1500rpm (maximum continuous power), with a maximum ...

engine. ;S.50:Luxury version with passenger cabin enlarged to six seats, fitted with a

Hispano-Suiza 8Fb The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza ...

engine. Three were converted from S.33s, plus two all-new aircraft.

Operators

; * Franco-Roumaine (20 aircraft) * CMA (15 aircraft) ; *

SNETA The ''Syndicat national d'Etude des Transports Aériens'' ("National Union of Study of Aerial Transport"), known by its acronym SNETA, was a Belgian airline which operated from 1919 to 1923 in order to pioneer commercial aviation in Belgium. In 1923 ...

(6 aircraft)

Specifications (S.33)

Variants

Operators

Specifications (S.33)

See also

References

Further reading