Raymond Victor Gabriel Jules Saulnier (

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

27 September 1881 –

Chécy Chécy () is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France. Population See also * Communes of the Loiret department The following is the list of the 325 communes of the Loiret department of France. The communes cooperate in t ...

4 March 1964) was a French aeronautical engineer. He was a graduate of the

École Centrale Paris École Centrale Paris (ECP; also known as École Centrale or Centrale) was a French grande école in engineering and science. It was also known by its official name ''École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures''. In 2015, École Centrale Paris mer ...

, and first collaborated with

Louis Blériot Louis Charles Joseph Blériot ( , also , ; 1 July 1872 – 1 August 1936) was a French aviator, inventor, and engineer. He developed the first practical headlamp for cars and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of th ...

on the

Blériot XI The Blériot XI is a French aircraft of the pioneer era of aviation. The first example was used by Louis Blériot to make the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft, on 25 July 1909. This is one of the most fa ...

used for the Channel crossing. In 1911, he founded the

Morane-Saulnier Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier was a French aircraft manufacturing company formed in October 1911 by Raymond Saulnier (1881–1964) and the Morane brothers, Léon (1885–1918) and Robert (1886–1968). The company was taken over and diversified ...

company with the Morane brothers, where he designed many aircraft and for which he filed numerous patents. He also designed the aircraft in which Roland Garros made the first crossing of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

on 23 September 1913. He was chief editor of an aviation periodical, and wrote «Etude, centrage et classification des Aéroplanes», which was considered an authoritative work on aircraft.Janine Tissot: les Actus DN janine tissot (Cabinet d'astrologie)- Fiche Biographique Raymond Saulnier/ Raymond Victor Gabriel Jules SAULNIER
Accessed 14 March 2017 He personally managed Morane-Saulnier until 1961. In 1962, the company filed for bankruptcy before being integrated firstly into

Sud-Aviation Sud Aviation (, ''Southern Aviation'') was a French state-owned aircraft manufacturer, originating from the merger of Sud-Est (SNCASE, or ''Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du sud-est'') and Sud-Ouest (SNCASO or ''Société n ...

, of which it became a subsidiary, then into SOCATA (Société de Construction d'Avions de Tourisme et Affaires). He had the first idea of a device allowing the synchronization of the firing a machine gun through a propeller, before the developments and refinements of

Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

, to which this device is often attributed. He designed the Morane 406, a fast fighter aircraft of the late 1930s, the MS-760 "Paris III" and the "Rallye Commodore". Between 1945 and 1964, under his direction, Morane-Saulnier produced over 1,000 aircraft and some 30 prototypes. ('Over 80 different aircraft models emerged from the Morane-Saulnier plants', according to one source).

Sources

Jean Riverain: ''Dictionnaire des aéronautes célèbres'', Paris, Éditions Larousse, 1970 The ''Catalogue général de la librairie française''Full text of "Catalogue général de la librairie française"
Accessed 15 March 2017 contains the entry:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saulnier, Raymond 1881 births 1964 deaths 20th-century French engineers