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The Nieuport-Delage Sesquiplans were a series of 1920s French
The Sesquiplane first appeared in 1921, a development of the
racing
In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific goa ...
monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...
s built by Nieuport-Delage
Nieuport, later Nieuport-Delage, was a French aeroplane company that primarily built racing aircraft before World War I and fighter aircraft during World War I and between the wars.
History
Beginnings
Originally formed as Nieuport-Duplex in ...
. It established a world air speed record in 1923.
Development
The Sesquiplane first appeared in 1921, a development of the Nieuport 31
The Nieuport Nie 31 or Nieuport 31 was a single-engine, single-seat monoplane or sesquiplane fighter aircraft designed and built in France in 1919.
Design and development
Though the Nie 31 (it had been flown and subsequently abandoned before ...
fighter. It was a sleek shoulder-wing braced monoplane powered by a supercharged 8 cylinder Hispano-Suiza 8F
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 8A ...
b engine. The name Sesquiplane was due to the additional aerofoil that was attached to the axle of the fixed conventional landing gear
Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...
.
Two Sesquiplans were built and both were entered into the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe
The Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe was an international aeronautical speed competition instituted on 25 August 1909 by the French oil magnate Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe. The race was reinstated three times through the years at the initiative of the ...
speed event held at Etampes in October 1921. The aircraft flown by Sadi-Lecointe crashed during the race but the other, piloted by Georges Kirsch, won at an average speed of 278.36 km/h (173 mph). These Sesquiplans had a span of , a wing area of , a length of and a loaded weight of . The following year Lacointe crashed again in a Sesquiplan with a new squared off wing of similar span and with a Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
416 airfoil section replacing the original wing, having set a new world record speed of 325 kmh (202 mph) over 100 km (62 mi).
The surviving aircraft was modified with a 400 hp (298 kW) Wright Hispano H-3
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 and a revised vertical tail, possibly becoming the Nieuport NiD 41Hartmann, p.31 (sources differ on the identity of the NiD 41Sanger, 2002, p.159, 174, 175) and named ''Eugène Gilbert''. Flush radiators made of thin corrugated brass welded together covered most of the wing and replaced the Lamblin radiators used previously.Sanger, 2002, p.175 In February 1923 Lecointe set a new world speed record of 375 kmh (233 mph) at Istres
Istres (; Occitan: Istre) is a commune in southern France, some 60 km (38 mi) northwest of Marseille. It is in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture.
Location
Istr ...
in it.
The last racing Sesquiplan, the Nieuport-Delage NiD 42 S was a new design, fitted with a 12-cylinder Hispano 12H
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties former ...
b engine. In June 1924 Lecointe won the Coupe Beaumont in it averaging a speed of over the 300 km course. He did not stop at the end of the course but continued to cover 500 km in total at an average of , a new record for that distance.
Specifications (''Eugène Gilbert'')
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
* * * {{Nieuport aircraft 1920s French sport aircraft Sesquiplan Shoulder-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1921 Sesquiplanes