The Farman F.140 Super Goliath was a very large, four engine

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 a ...

night bomber, designed in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

in the mid-1920s. Nine flew with the

French Air Force The French Air and Space Force (AAE) (french: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, ) is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. It was the first military aviation force in history, formed in 1909 as the , a service arm of the French Ar ...

until concerns about structural weakness grounded them in 1930. The prototype set several world records for altitude reached with heavy useful loads.

Design and development

Two different Farman types have taken the name Super Goliath, the first being the sole

Farman BN.4 __NOTOC__ The Farman BN.4, a.k.a. Super Goliath, was a very large 1920s French biplane designed by Farman as a long-range night bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-groun ...

of 1922. The F.140, first flown in April 1924, also had 4 engines, though these were more powerful, but was slightly smaller; small numbers served briefly with l'Armeé de l'Air. The F.140 was a large triple bay

with unstaggered, constant chord, square tipped wings. The interplane gap was large, with the upper plane held high above the fuselage by a set of four vertical centre section struts. The

interplane struts 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 ...

were also simple parallel pairs. It had four 500 hp (373 kW)

Farman 12We The Farman 12We was a French 12-cylinder broad arrow configuration aircraft engine that was designed and built by Farman in the early 1920s. Power output was 370 kilowatts (500 hp). Design and development The Farman company develop ...

engines, water-cooled units with their cylinders, in three banks of four, arranged in W or

broad arrow A broad arrow, of which a pheon is a variant, is a stylised representation of a metal arrowhead, comprising a tang and two barbs meeting at a point. It is a symbol used traditionally in heraldry, most notably in England, and later by the Britis ...

configuration. These were mounted on the lower wings as

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

/ pusher pairs, each pair in a single cylindrical housing with domed ends, in the inner bays. Each engine drove a four-blade propeller, each constructed from a pair of two-blade airscrews bolted to the drive shafts at right angles. Tall, narrow radiators were placed vertically above the engine housings. The fuselage of the F.140 was flat sided, the nose rounded into an upright half-cylinder. It had a

conventional undercarriage 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 ...

with pairs of mainwheels mounted on solid, broad, rectangular, vertical extensions below the engines. The F.140 Super Goliath flew for the first time in April 1924. It was followed in 1930 by the F.141, a modernised version with a nose with a "balcony", a forward thrusting overhanging structure for a gun emplacement. This increased the length by 1.17 m (3 ft 10 in).

Operational history

The prototype F.140 and two more pre-production aircraft were accepted by the Armeé de l'Air. In early 1930 they were joined by six production type F.141s. Meanwhile, doubts were being raised at the Air Ministry about the safety of all Farman multi-motor aircraft, following a number of accidents. In September 1930, all such Farman types, including the Super Goliaths, were grounded. In mid-November 1925, piloted by Farman test pilot Louis Bossoutrot, the prototype F.140 had set several load related world aviation records. These were :with 2,000 kg useful load, an altitude of 4,990 m; :with 5,000 kg useful load, an altitude of 3,586 m and a duration of 72 min 21 s; :greatest useful load to 2,000 m, 6,000 kg. The altitude achieved with a 5,000 kg load remained the world record on 1 January 1931.

Variants

;F.140 :Prototype and pre-production. 3 built, second and third with some changes to the nose. ;F.141:Production version with balcony nose extension. 6 built.

Operators

; *

Units using this aircraft

6th squadron of the 22nd RABN,

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as def ...

Specifications (F.140)

References

Bibliography

* {{Farman aircraft 1920s French bomber aircraft F.140 Aircraft first flown in 1924 Biplanes Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft