In October 1917

Nieuport 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 ...

began construction of a prototype

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 ...

fighter known as the Nieuport Madon, a strut braced monoplane.

Design and development

The tapered shoulder mounted wing was supported by

lift strut In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in ...

s attached to the

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

, which featured an additional constant chord lifting area between the wheels. A section of wing root was cut away to improve downward visibility. The fuselage and wing were fabric covered. It was armed with two synchronized

Vickers machine guns The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more men to move and o ...

. The first prototype made its first flight in early January 1918 while powered by a Gnome Monosoupape 9N

rotary engine The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. The engine's crankshaft remained stationary in operation, while the entire crankcase and i ...

, the same engine used in the

Nieuport 28 The Nieuport 28 C.1, a French biplane fighter aircraft flown during World War I, was built by Nieuport and designed by Gustave Delage. Owing its lineage to the successful line of sesquiplane fighters that included the Nieuport 17, the Nieu ...

. The second prototype first flew in late January 1918 with the slightly more powerful Le Rhône 9R. This aircraft had a revised wing whose inboard trailing edges were cut away and it had an elongated fin. On 1 May 1918 the second prototype was rejected in favour of the Monosoupape powered model. The Nieuport Madon was not officially accepted but would be refined through 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 ...

the

Nieuport-Delage Sesquiplan The Nieuport-Delage Sesquiplans were a series of 1920s French racing monoplanes built by Nieuport-Delage. It established a world air speed record in 1923. Development The Sesquiplane first appeared in 1921, a development of the Nieuport 31 fig ...

and eventually into the

Nieuport-Delage NiD 62 The Nieuport-Delage NiD.62 was a French sesquiplane fighter from the early 1930s. This machine was a descendant of a long line of Nieuport-Delage fighters that were designed and built during the years immediately after World War I. The NiD.62 was ...

which was still in second line service in 1940. Nieuport Madon WW1 airplane rear

Specifications

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * {{Nieuport aircraft

Madon The Madon () is a long river in the Vosges and Meurthe-et-Moselle ''départements'', northeastern France. Its source is near Vioménil. It flows generally north. It is a left tributary of the Moselle into which it flows at Pont-Saint-Vincen ...

1910s French military aircraft 1910s French fighter aircraft Rotary-engined aircraft Sesquiplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1918

Design and development

Specifications

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography