A Deep Dive into the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace

Grant.
Amazing stuff.
The French certainly had a flair for aircraft design with some"different" designs.

Cheers

Jeff

Good shots Grant!

Thanks again guys. Glad you are enjoying this. It is s informative to me as you are finding it.

Now we are across the dividing balcony from the previous Prototype Hall and overlooking the Hall de la Cocarde, or the Roundel Room. This hall focusses on aircraft of the Armee de l'Air since the end of World War Two to the introduction of the Dassault Mirage 2000, which took place in 1984, with its principal display feature being a roundel painted on the floor, with aircraft arranged around it. Here are three views of the hall, which has been a recogniseable feature of the Musee de l'Air displays for years now.

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One of the most eye catching and imaginative things here is the Dassault Mirage F1 Cristal, a life size reproduction of a Mirage F1 fuselage made of perspex with interior equipment installed, including its SNECMA Atar 9K-50 engine and its Thomson CSF Cyrano IV radar unit. The entire thing lights up and there is an audio accompaniment to the display as well. Built by Dassault for promoting the type, the Cristal made its airshow debut at the 1977 Paris Airshow and after display at a few other events was donated to the museum in 1979.

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We go down the stars and start with the twin boom SNCASE SE.535 Mistral. Although based on the de Havilland Vampire FB.5, of which SNCASE assembled 67 from company supplied components, and licence building 120 in its own factory, the SE.535 Mistral differed from the Vampire in that it was powered by a licence built Rolls-Royce Nene engine and was fitted with an ejection seat for its occupant. Here is a concise synopsis of the type, which I'm supplying here since I'd just be repeating what someone else wrote anyway:

"Assigned the designation Vampire Mk 53 by the parent company and given the appellation of SE 530 by Sud-Est, this was developed at the behest of the Armee de l'Air. It utilised the basic Mk 5 airframe mated with the 2270kg Hispano-built Nene 102, the wing root intakes being enlarged and the split-trunk intake of the Hawker P.1040 being adapted to provide the extra air demanded for the rear face of the Nene's double-sided impeller. Fuel tankage was increased, cabin pressurisation introduced and the pilot was provided with an SNCASO ejection seat. A pre-series of four aircraft was built, the first of these flying on 1 April 1951. Baptised Mistral, the type entered series production in SE 532 form, the first flying in December 1951 and 97 being built. These were followed by 150 examples of the SE 535, the last of which was delivered on 25 March 1954. The SE 535 was powered by the Nene 104 with similar rating to the Nene 102B of the SE 532, and, in addition to its four 20mm HS 404 cannon, could carry eight T-10 or HVAR rockets, or two 450kg bombs. The Mistral entered Armee de l'Air service in 1952 and was finally withdrawn in 1961."

From here: Sud-Est SE 530 Mistral - fighter (aviastar.org)

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This is a rather shiny model of a Sud Aviation Vautour that I took a fancy to. I washed the colourt out because the base was a strong red that spoiled the image. Here is some info from wikipedia on the type, which, although the museum has one in its collection was not present on the day of my visit because of the airshow:

"The Vautour was operated by France's Armée de l'Air, having been originally developed by Sud Aviation in response to a French requirement for a jet aircraft for bombing, low-level attack and all-weather interception operations. The Vautour was used in the Force de frappe under the Commandement des Forces Aériennes Stratégiques; each aircraft was suitable for the carriage of a nuclear weapon. The shortcomings of the type as a bomber, such as its lack of radar or other advanced navigation/attack systems, led to the type being replaced by the more capable Dassault Mirage IV. The Vautour never saw combat use with the French Air Force.
The only other customer for the Vautour was Israel. During its service with the Israeli Air Force (IAF), the type undertook various mission and roles and was quickly used in combat. Vautours were used during the wars between Israel and its neighbors, including the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition. Only one air-to-air kill was recorded by a Vautour; the type was used more for bombing and ground strafing and was reportedly considered by Israel to be comparable to the Soviet-built Ilyushin Il-28 medium bombers used by its regional adversaries."

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This next aircraft followed the Mistral into Armee de l'Air service, the Dassault MD.450 Ouragan (Hurricane); the first wholly French jet design to enter military service, although powered by a Hispano-Suiza licence built Nene engine. One of the unsung early jet designs to emerge following World War Two, the Ouragan was a wholly French design, but shared its configuration of a nose mounted intake with the Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15 and SAAB J-29 Tunnan and low set wings with the North American F-86. First flying on 28 February 1949, some 350 were delivered to the Armee de l'Air, of which, like much of the rebuilt French military, 185 were funded under the United States Mutual Defense Assistance Act, which supplied funding to Allied nations as a bulwark against the threat from Soviet Union allied countries. Seeing service with El Salvador, India and Israel, the type saw combat in regional conflicts with its foreign operators. This particular aircraft is the second prototype 02, which first flew on 20 July 1949, it is decorated with the Sioux Head of the famous Lafayette Escadrille on its left side, visible here and the Stork emblem of EC 1/2 Cicognes on its right side. After ending its career in 1953, the aircraft was presented to the museum in 1977.

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Our next aircraft is the Ouragan's immediate successor in Armee de l'Air service, the Dassault MD.454 Mystère IV, the prototype of which we saw in the Prototype Hall. In this view, the type's resemblance to its predecessor is noticeable, even down to the nose undercarriage door layout, aside from its sharply swept wing.

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Like the Ouragan, the Mystère IV was a moderately successful design that cemented its designer's modern fighter jet credentials, and, like its foreign contemporaries, was an evolutionary step forward from its predecessor, through the less successful Mystère II, which never entered service. Powered by a 7,720 lb thrust Hispano-Suiza Verdon 350 turbojet, a licence built Roll-Royce Tay, like its predecessor, in foreign service the Mystère IV saw combat with the Indian and Israeli air forces. Its performance was commendable too, reaching supersonic speeds at low altitude, the first time the type did so was in the prototype we have seen already. This particular one is No.105. It's interesting to note that construction of the Mystère IV was also funded under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act and we'll hear more about the strange consequences that had on the British aviation preservation scene in forthcoming images.

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Next is the rakish North American F-100D Super Sabre, which, owing to its descent from the F-86 and its similarity in look to the previous two Dassault products, looks very natural in French markings - it could almost be a direct descendant of the previous two aircraft! This one wears the Masque de Comédie winged badge of the World War Two vintage EC 6/GCIII/6 on its fin whilst serving with EC 1/11 "Rousillon", and, like the Mystere IV before it, its purchase was covered under the US Mutual Defense Assistance Act.

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Interestingly, the Armee de l'Air was the first US aligned air force to receive the F-100; the first arriving in May 1958. A total of 100 aircraft (85 F-100Ds and 15 F-100Fs) were supplied to France, and assigned to the NATO 4th Allied Tactical Air Force. They were stationed at German and French bases. French F-100s were used on combat missions flying from bases in France against targets in during the tragic War of Independence in Algeria. In 1967, France left NATO and German-based F-100s were transferred to France, using bases vacated by the USAF. The last unit on F100D/F was the Escadron 4/11 Jura, based at Djibouti, which kept the Super Sabre until 1978 (thanks again wiki). Interesting detail visible from underneath.

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Between 1975 and 1978, a small air force of ex-Armee de l'Air jets landed at RAF Sculthorpe, Norfolk, which was in use by units of the United States Air Force at the time, for disposal; the American government had decided that these aircraft, paid for by the US were to be scrapped on retirement from French use. And so they were, although a few escaped the cutting torch. On 24 November 1975, the first F-100 arrived and less than a year later it and its fellow arrivals at that time had been destroyed. Further F-100 arrivals at Sculthorpe in 1976 were similarly disposed of, alongside Mystère IVAs and Lockheed T-33s, the first of which flew into Sculthorpe on 25 January 1978. Not all were scrapped however; a few enterprising individuals representing local museums were lucky enough to rescue a number of these aircraft, and to this day there are nine Mystères, nine F-100s and eight T-33s from the Sculthorpe Armee de l'Air that can be seen in British aviation museums around the country. The shark like F-100 looks menacing from this angle.

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Next, more from the Hall de la Cocarde.

Great stuff Grant. It would be interesting to start a thread about types that the French did NOT use!

That would only be half a page !!!!

Great info and pics Grant, looking forward to the next batch.

Great shots Grant!

Welcome back to this deep dive into the Musee de l'Air and we pick up where we left off in the Hall of the Cocarde and we are looking at the only surviving Armee de l'Air North American F-86K Sabre on display in France. The last of 60 examples supplied to France, the F-86K all-weather interceptor was a NATO specified export variant of the F-86D Sabre Dog, with notable changes from the original, such as the absence of the underbelly Mk.4 unguided rocket launcher, instead is fitted with four 20mm cannon, nor were they fitted with the Hughes E-4 Fire Control System (FCS), instead fitted with the MG-4 FCS and were fitted with the AN/APG-37 all-weather radar. Another change was the modification to carry AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs, implemented on French aircraft halfway through their brief service in 1959. Built under licence by Fiat in Italy, only two Armee de l'Air units operated the type, first acquired in 1956 and replaced by the Mirage IIIC six years later; these were EC I/13 "Artois" and EC II/13 "Alpes" based at Colmar-Myenheim Air Base in the Alsace region near the German border. In Armee de l'Air service the aircraft had a charmed existence as an interceptor of high flying Soviet bombers, suffering some 22 incidents, including the death of an engineer sucked into the intake of a running aircraft in 1958, with only six hull losses. On retirement, 22 of the aircraft were sent back to Italy and distributed to Central and South American countries, while, 15 went to the United States and the remaining airframes were scrapped at Colmar-Myenheim, their home for their brief sojourn in France.

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Next is the last of Dassault's line of Mystère jet fighter airframes, the MD-456 Super Mystère. The first truly supersonic in level flight European in-service jet fighter, the Super Mystère was based, not surprisingly on the Mystère IV airframe, of which we've seen previously during our museum visit, which was supersonic in a dive only. It bears the distinction of being the first French designed jet fighter with a French developed powerplant and not a licence built variant of a foreign engine, the 7,500 lb thrust SNECMA Atar 101G-2. Beginning production in 1957, a total of 180 were built, remaining in Armee de l'Air service until 1977 as strike fighters until replaced by the Mirage F1. Here's what wiki has to say about their export career:

"In addition, 24 aircraft were sold to the Israeli Air Force in 1958. The aircraft saw action in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. They were well liked by the Israeli pilots and were a match for the Arab MiG-19 aircraft in air-to-air combat. In 1973, the Israeli Air Force and Honduras Air Force upgraded their Super Mystère B.2s with a non-afterburning version of the Pratt & Whitney J52-P8A and new avionics. In Israeli service these upgraded SMB.2s were also known as the IAI Sa'ar (after a Hebrew word meaning "storm").

In 1976, Israel sold 12 complete airframes to Honduras. In 1979, Honduras purchased 4 more complete airframes, totaling 16 aircraft. They were involved in numerous border skirmishes with Sandinistan Nicaragua and were finally withdrawn from service in 1996, replaced by 12 Northrop F-5Es. The 11 surviving aircraft are for sale as surplus and 1 more is preserved at the Museo del Aire de Honduras at Toncontin International Airport."

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Now, you'd think that with an aircraft as widespread as the North American T-6, it would be easy to find out about the use of the type with the Armee de l'Air, but firm details are few and far between, suffice to say, more than 1,000 T-6s were used by the French and the type saw conflict in that bloodiest of post-war France involved conflicts, the Algerian War of Independence. Wiki has a very detailed page on this nasty war that escapes the attention of the English speaking world: Algerian War - Wikipedia

As with the A-1 Skyraider in the World War Two hangar, the T-6G saw combat with the Escadrilles d'aviation légère d'appui, or EALA for short as the most numerous of the many different types operated in theatre as light attack aircraft. At the time, the French threw in everything they could in use, including an AAC.1 Toucan, or Junkers Ju 52/3m (!), as well as Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and its descendant the F-84F Thunderstreak, which we'll see later, with pilot training for this hazardous role being provided in France in the angular Morane Saulnier MS.475 Vanneau two-seat training aircraft. In March 1956 the first 150 of nearly 700 examples of the T-6G were ordered from the USA, arriving at SFERMA at Bordeaux-Mérignac for conversion for Armee de l'Air use before being sent to Algeria. More than thirty units of EALA were equipped with the type, this particular one wearing the markings of 8/72 "Dog's Head" based at Tebessa in the northeast of Algeria - of note, if it was Cheikh Larbi Tébessa Airport that the unit was based at, that airport was constructed for use by the USAAF's 12th Air Force during WW2, in use by the 31st Fighter Group operating Supermarine Spitfires, but I digress... Below the T-6 is the cockpit section of a Potez Fouga CM-170R Magister, with the Mirage F1 Cristal behind, and peaking out just below the right hand wheel is the nose of a Morane Saulnier MS.472 Vanneau, differing from the MS.475 mentioned above by dint of its radial powerplant.

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Apparently, T-6G losses were heavy and the aircraft was generally underpowered for the armed operations it was engaged in in the North African heat and it was replaced with the T-28 Trojan, or Fennec in French use. Small arms fire also claimed many aircraft in theatre. Nominal armament of the T-6G with EALA was 7.5mm pack guns fitted with two guns each, 68mm SNEB unguided rocket launchers as fitted to our example, 127mm T.10 unguided rockets, napalm canisters and various sizes of small bombs, all carried under the wings. Normally, the T-6Gs were bare aluminium, with the tricoleur in the usual places and insignia of the various units, as well as the all-over yellow as seen here.

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Next up is the prototype of the last of the Mirage line in Armee de l'Air service, the Mirage 2000-01. Delivered to the museum in 1988, Here is a snippet of information from Wiki France (hence the slightly vague English) on the development of the Mirage 2000 that led to our titular airframe:

"In 1972, the French Air Force launched the Future Combat Aircraft (ACF) program, for which it requested a twin-engine aircraft equipped with Snecma M53 and with a fixed wing, intended for air superiority missions. While preparing a response to this call for tenders, the manufacturer Dassault Aviation launched the study of a single-jet delta aircraft called "Delta 2000" on private funds the following year. On December 12, 1975, the ACF program was discontinued, due to cost issues, and the government decided to adopt the Delta 2000 project instead.

Four prototypes of a single-seat fighter aircraft (Mirage 2000C) were officially ordered in 1976. They must be powered by a 7.5-t thrust M53-2 engine, pending the more powerful M53-5 for standard aircraft. The first prototype made its maiden flight on March 10, 1978. The first series aircraft took off on 20 November 1982, equipped with the M53-5 reactor, and deliveries to the French Air Force began the following year. On July 2, 1984, the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the Air Force, the 2nd Fighter Wing, stationed in Dijon, was the first squadron to receive the Mirage 2000. The first 37 series aircraft come with an RDM radar (Radar Doppler Multifunction), as the development of the RDI (Radar Doppler to Impulses) radar is proving difficult. It was not until 1987 that the first copies finally equipped with the RDI radar were delivered, and they also received an even more powerful M53-P2 reactor (9,700 kgp)."

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Now the final airframe of the Hall of the Cocarde, a Republic F-84F Thunderstreak. Another Mutual defense Assistance Program airframe, the F-84F was another type, like the F-86K previously seen that was delivered in numbers to NATO countries, becoming numerically the most important aircraft in the Armee de l'Air, from 1955 with 384 examples supplied. These were all built under licence by General Motors as the F-84F-46 GK. Remaining in service for 11 years with the air force, five fighter units were equipped with the type. Decorated as 727 "3-VA" this one is devoid of unit markings and nothing is known of its history. Originally, the aircraft was displayed as "4-VA", but this was changed to its current marking in honour of an aircraft that operated during the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez Crisis of November 1956, apparently. Not really visible in my reduced resolution shot, but faint evidence of the '4' can be made out around the '3' if one looks closely at the real thing.

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Used in combat during the aforementioned Suez Crisis, aircraft of all five air force units saw detachment to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus during the rather controversial invasion of Egypt. Carrying out attacks on Egyptian airfields between the 1st and 5th November, as well as attacking Egyptian armour, only one F-84 was lost in the operation. The type was also to see action during the Algerian War of Independence mentioned earlier here. Since the French F-84Fs were supplied under US jurisdiction, most ended up being returned to the United States, although there are a few remaining in France as museum pieces, as a very common type on display in Western European aviation museums. We say goodbye to the Hall of the Cocarde and progress to our next destination, with this parting shot of the F-84F from the rear, showing its perforated air brakes deployed.

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See you in the Hall des Voilures Tournantes!

Crimea_River said:

It would be interesting to start a thread about types that the French did NOT use!

Click to expand...

There can't be many, but of the types the French Air Force did use that are not part of the museum collection, I'd like to see a Dornier Do 335, He 274, Ju 88, Ki-43, P-39...

Wouldn't we all!?

Excellent shots Grant!

So, it's been a while since I did anything on this thread but I thought I'd continue while I'm on a semester break. We left the Musee at the Hall of the Cocarde and now we are in the Hall des Voilures Tournantes and start with the Pescara rotorcraft in the entrance. Firstly, Argentina-born Raul Pateras Pescara was something of a polymath and was trained as an engineer and a lawyer whilst conceiving a variety of aircraft designs not limited to rotorcraft. Before the Great War, he dabbled in the design of a torpedo-carrying seaplane of basic design, attempting to convince the Italian Naval Ministry of the feasibility of the concept and it was Capt Guidoni of the Italian Navy that carried lead weights in a canoe-shaped fairing that was dropped from a modified Farman seaplane in 1914, but the Farman was not powerful enough to carry a full-size torpedo aloft. On 26 February 1914, the Pescara-Guidoni PP twin float monoplane seaplane fitted with hydrovanes on its floats lifted an 875 lb dummy torpedo into the air and dropped it; this is recognised as the first airdropping of a torpedo from an aircraft, despite the torpedo being a dummy. Pescara's next aerial venture was rotorcraft and although by the time he began investigating them, the first helicopter had flown - Paul Cornu's pioneering rotorcraft first got airborne in 1907 - existing designs, such as those of his rival Étienne Oehmichen were, although more sophisticated were driven by secondary rotor blades for forward motion. Pescara's rotorcraft had no secondary means of propulsion except the main rotors. Pescara's rotorcraft in the Hall des Voilures Tournantes showing its contra-rotating biplane rotors.

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Evidently, Pescara got around as his first helicopter was built in Barcelona, Spain in 1919, being completed in 1920, but powered by a 45 hp Hispano Suiza engine was not capable of lifting itself off the ground. Moving to Paris, France he received government funding from Service Technique de I'Aeronautique
and his No.2 was capable of hovering about 1 and a half metres above the ground for short periods of time in 1922. His No.3 (named the No.2F in France) however was the breakthrough aircraft; powered by a 180 hp Hisso vee eight engine cooled by a Lamblin radiator mounted vertically in its tail, its rotors were biplane blades that were capable of warping in flight to alter their pitch, which enabled the coaxial rotors to achieve lift and thrust. In January 1924 named The Marquis Pateras the No.3 achieved a record for rotor-wing craft by remaining in the air for 8 minutes and 13 seconds. Pescara's machine became the first rotorcraft to achieve a 1-kilometre closed circuit, which Pescara achieved in a time of 10 minutes and 33 seconds, but his attempt at the Grand Prix was disqualified as the aircraft hit the ground and sustained damage during the flight. After further distance and height records achieved by the No.3, Pescara lost interest in his new toy and he returned to Spain and went into automobile manufacturing. The Pescara aircraft in the Hall des Voilures Tournantes is unusual as it has the features of the No.3 but with a radial engine and devoid of the Lamblin radiator in its tail, but its rotor layout is the same. The museum's website doesn't identify the type, other than stating it's a Pescara design. Close up of the radial engine and rotor stem.

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From an elevated position, the rotor layout can be appreciated.

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This bizarre contraption was built by Pescara's rival Étienne Oehmichen, whose rotorcraft designs appeared at around the same time as Pescara's but were larger and less practical, relying on four main rotors unable to be actuated, for lift, and a series of wooden propellers mounted at different locations and plains around the crucifix framework that made up the body of his aircraft, for thrust. Like Pescara, Oehmichen was a capable individual who trained as a biologist but was also an inventor, who built a camera capable of shooting 1,000 frames per second. Beginning at around the same time as Pescara, Oehmichen's first helicopter first hovered in 1921 but his No.2, first flying in 1922 was the first reliable rotorcraft, and owing to its fixed-pitch rotors, the small propellers led to the development of the tail rotor as a means of steering the aircraft, which is universally applied to helicopters today. This device, Oehmichen's No.6 was, strictly speaking not a helicopter, but a steerable balloon with take-off and landing lift augmented by four upward-facing propellers he called a Hélicostat. Built in 1931, it was designed to be able to operate without ground crew, which lighter-than-aircraft relied on in numbers back then, so the theory went, although Oehmichen tested it inside the big airship shed at Orly it never saw practical flight. It was donated to the museum in February 1936.

DSC_0313

This next rotorcraft is as bizarre a concept as the Hélicostat, but was applied successfully in its original designed role, that of observation. The Focke-Achgelis Fa 330A-0 Bachstelze (Water Wagtail) was an unpowered rotor kite carried by U boats. Here's a comprehensive description from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: "The navy asked Focke-Achgelis GmbH to build a rotor kite that a U-boat could tow aloft to search for targets. The aircraft had to fly high enough to substantially boost the scouting range, yet remain small, easy to store, and mechanically simple to maintain and operate. Focke-Achgelis proposed a clever design best characterized by simplicity. The Fa 330 was simple to fabricate, easy to assemble on deck for flight, and weighed so little that two men could comfortably hoist the entire machine. The Fa 330 needed no engine because the submarine towed the gyro kite through the air. Like a gyroplane, the rotor kite flew by autorotation, meaning that the movement of relative wind through the rotors caused them to turn with sufficient speed to generate lift.

The airframe consisted of two 6.35 cm (2.5 in) diameter steel tubes joined to form an inverted 'T.' One tube served as the fuselage of the aircraft, which mounted the pilot's seat and rear control surfaces. The other tube served as the rotor mast. A control stick hung from the blade hub atop the mast. The pilot moved the stick for direct (no intervening control linkage) pitch and roll control, and he used foot pedals to move the large rudder and control yaw. The horizontal stabilizer had no moving control surfaces. Weight was saved on the rotor hub by using steel cables to support the blades against blade droop when the aircraft was not flying. The cables also limited the blades' range of movement when during flight. Instrumentation consisted of an altimeter, airspeed indicator, and tachometer. Its landing gear consisted of two small skids.

The three-bladed rotor turned freely but was limited to 250 rpm. This limit was reached if the aircraft attained a never-exceed speed of 80 kph (50 mph). Normal flight rpm was about 205 at a standard towing airspeed of 40 km/h (25 mph). A minimum speed of 27 kph (17 mph) was required to maintain autorotation. Blade pitch could only be set before flight by turning adjustment screws. The blades used flapping and dragging hinges equipped with variable dampers. The rotor blades consisted of a 3.2 m (10 ft 4 in) steel spar that supported plywood ribs. The blades were 0.3 m (12 in) wide and skinned with fabric-covered plywood. The blade airfoil was almost symmetrical. The blades were precisely balanced during the manufacturing process, which eliminated the need for difficult and time-consuming manual balancing at sea.

The Fa-330 was stowed in two tubes of approximately 3.75 meters (12 ft 4in) length built vertically into the U-boat's conning tower. One tube contained the blades and tail and the other contained the fuselage. Four crewmen could assemble the entire structure in three minutes in calm conditions. Rotation of the blades in preparation for flight could be done by hand, but if a course pitch (which provided the best operating performance) was preset on the rotor blades this became extremely difficult. In that case, a rope wrapped around the drum on the rotor hub was used to get the rotor turning. The Fa 330 took off from a small platform attached to the aft railing of the U-boat's conning tower. A towline extended from an electric winch to a quick release coupling on the Fa 330. Since the primary duty of the Fa 330 was to spot suitable targets, communication with the towing vessel was essential. The pilot used an interphone system that consisted of a telephone cable, which paralleled the towline. Upon landing a rotor brake was provided to quickly stop the rotor spinning. Disassembly time was not much greater than that required for assembly. If the U-boat came under attack and had to make a crash dive the pilot could pull a quick-release lever above the seat, and the towline would separate from the aircraft in addition to releasing the rotor hub from the mast. As the rotors departed they pulled a line out, which deployed a parachute. Once the parachute opened, the pilot released his seat buckle, which allowed the remainder of the aircraft structure to fall away. Additionally, the towline quick-release coupling could be manually operated without engaging the rotor release."

This example, Wk Nr 100150 served aboard U 196 and was recovered in Bordeaux and tested by the French navy in the wind tunnel at Chalaix-Meudon in July 1945. Elements from two other Bachstelzes were used in its restoration.

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This particular autogyro is quite famous when on 18 September 1928 it became the first rotorcraft to fly internationally when it crossed the English Channel and arrived in France. The only Avro built Cierva C.8L Mk.II, this aircraft is based on the fuselage and engine of the Avro 504N two-seat trainer powered by a 180 hp Armstrong Siddeley Lynx IV and received the Avro type designation Type 611 and the civil registration G-EBYY. Built in 1928, the C.8L Mk.II was ordered by Air Commodore James 'Jimmy' Weir, Scottish industrialist and financial backer and chairman of the Cierva Autogiro Company, which, devoid of facilities of its own contracted the construction of aircraft fitted with Juan de la Cierva's rotor technology to different aircraft firms, including Avro. Front view of G-EBYY.

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Test flown by famed Australian aviator Bert Hinkler at Hamble, it took part in the King's Cup Air Race at Hendon on 20 July but it was forced to retire after a forced landing due to fuel shortage. In August, test pilot A. H. Rawson flew it on a 3,000-mile tour of principal airports around the UK, stopping at Jimmy Weir's estate at Dalrymple, near Turnhouse, Edinburgh. During its successful Channel crossing, it was flown by Cierva himself with French journalist Henri Bouché of the magazine La Aéronautique as a passenger, from Croydon to Le Bourget, making stops at Saint-Ingelvert and Abbeville. After service in various individual hands in France, it remarkably survived World War Two and was exhibited in the museum sometime after the war.

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This next autogyro is the SNCASE C.302 and was built under licence following experience building Cierva C.30s by Lioré et Olivier (LeO) in 1931. Nationalised as a part of SNCASE in 1937, LeO manufactured around 100 C.30s and 120 of the French specific C.301 powered by a 175 hp Salmson 9 nine-cylinder engine as opposed to the Armstrong Siddeley engine in the C.30. Four LeO C.30s went to Groupe Aérien d'Observation 504 at Chartres in 1937 as the French military's first rotorcraft but were not fully operational at the time of the German invasion in May 1940 as there could not be found a practical use for them. Built from salvaged parts, two C.302s were cobbled together by SNCASE after World War Two and were similar to the C.301 apart from an altered rotor head, which enabled the rotor to be driven by the engine for what was known as a jumping start, a near-vertical take-off, although after take-off the rotor was disengaged from the engine drive shaft. This one, F-BDAD was the second built and was formerly a part of an aero club at the SNCASE airfield at Marignane before coming to the museum. It's seen here with Channel crossing Cierva C.8L Mk.II G-EBYY for comparison.

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This Piasecki HUP-2 Retriever represents one of 15 operated by the Aeronavale between 1953 and 1965, although it is an ex-US Navy example gifted to the museum and decorated in the markings of No.130086 of Escadrille 23S at Saint-Mandrier in 1954, the unit being the first in the Aeronavale to operate helicopters. The Aeronavale Retrievers were primarily used for plane guard and utility duties aboard the French aircraft carriers of the LaFayette Class, the former USS Langley as LaFayette and USS Belleau Wood as Bois Belleau, and the Colossus Class Carrier Arromanches, formerly HMS Colossus.

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A ubiquitous Bell 47, construction number 710, F-MBCV.

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Finally for today, this is the SNCASO SO.1220 Djinn, the first helicopter powered by a gas turbine that drove rotor tip jets. Powered by a single Turboméca Palouste 4, this is the second prototype of the production SO.1221 Djinn; wiki describes the use of the tip jets in detail: "The Sud-Ouest Djinn was the first tip-jet propelled rotorcraft to enter production. As such, the propulsion system involved a Turbomeca Palouste gas turbine engine that drove a pump to produce compressed air, which was in turn fed into the aircraft's hollow rotor blades to exit at their tips, causing the blades to rotate. The rotor hub assembly, which freely oscillated around a spherical thrust bearing, was mounted on a steel pylon by means of a ball joint and rubber shock absorbers. Unlike some of the experimental tip-jet designs of the era, a 'cold' tip-jet approach was used: that there was no combustion activity present at the exhaust nozzles installed at the ends of the rotor blades. Consequently, the nozzles produced little noise in operation, and were claimed by Sud-Ouest to be "noiseless".

The all-metal rotor blades, through which the compressed air travelled to be ejected at the blade tips, consist of a spar of tapering thickness, a honeycomb-filled trailing edge, and feature faired roots to increase their lift coefficient. It was claimed that the blades possessed a highly homogenous structure, a highly finished surface and a constant profile, and could be easily dismantled to facilitate inspection of the main spar. The blade had no risk of icing owing to the internal current of warm air. The Djinn used relatively standard flight controls, such as the collective pitch control (upon which the throttle was positioned) and adjustable friction trims."

Making its first flight on 2 January 1953, 178 examples of the Djinn were built, with the type seeing military service with the Armee de l'Air and the Bundeswehr.

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Next, more rotorcraft...

great stuff Grant.

that No2F thingy looks like a Wile e Coyote ACME contraption !

Good to see you back at this Grant and hope the last term went well.

Good stuff Grant.

Lovely shots Grant!

Thanks guys.

Crimea_River said:

Good to see you back at this Grant and hope the last term went well.

Click to expand...

It did thanks Andy; final results for the subjects of last semester saw two As and two Bs, which I'll take! I got a C in a couple of essays, hence the Bs, but, as they say, "a Cee is a Degree"! This semester I have another four papers, including Air Power and The History of Aviation, which I might enjoy a little more than I should!

More French rotorcraft, first up, two of the best and most successful French helicopter designs. Whilst the Djinn was the first turbine-powered rotorcraft produced in substantial numbers, the SNCASE SE.3130 Alouette (Lark) II was one of the first truly practical turbine-powered rotorcraft put into production and with some 1,324 units built in France, one of the most successful. A derivative, which was equally a success is the SA315B Lama, which combines the powerplant of the later Alouette III with the frame of the Alouette II. This is the prototype Alouette II, the Alouette I was built in prototype form only. It made its last flight on 3 October 1995 when it flew into Le Bourget for display in the museum.

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A production example of the Aérospatiale SA.319 Alouette III of which over 2,000 were built; this Gendarmerie example flew 13,478 flying hours and saved the lives of 16,087 people over a 35-year span.

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France was the largest foreign operator of the Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, with a total of 289 of them in French hands, with Sud Aviation assembling the first 134 from kits supplied from the manufacturer in 1959 and building under licence a further 155. The type saw service in all three branches of the French armed forces and saw combat use in the nasty Algerian liberation war. This is the very first example delivered by Sud Aviation, registered as F-ZAGP.

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The replacement for the excellent Alouette series was the SA.341 Gazelle (Gazelle in English ), which was initially developed by Aérospatiale but also produced by Westland of the UK and became as much as an international success, with over 1,700 of them built between 1967 and 1996, 262 at Westland's Yeovil production facility, and limited production by SOKO in the former Yugoslavia. It was the first production helicopter to be fitted with a Fenestron enclosed tail rotor (and was the model for the very cool and memorable Blue Thunder helicopter!) and features composite rotor blades fitted to a fixed rotor head. Still in service with the French and British armed forces, as well as with several other countries in both civil and military form, the Gazelle is by far and away one of the most successful French helicopters in terms of longevity. The museum example is a conventional production type and saw service with Aviation légère de l'armée de Terre, ALAT, literally Land Army Light Aviation.

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The Gazelle has earned the nickname the Flying Drumstick; from above, it's easy to see why...

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This is Breguet Aviation's only post-war dive into the world of rotorcraft, and, being that it was not put into production after this sole example built, it was not a success. Louis Breguet began an interest in rotorcraft with his Breguet-Richet Gyroplane built in 1907 which managed to get off the ground but was not sufficiently powerful to lift itself into the air for sustained flight - it only flew whilst restrained. In 1935 however he built the coaxial rotor Gyroplane Laboratoire, which successfully flew, but its development was stifled by a hard landing in June 1939 and with the German invasion of France in May 1940 it was abandoned altogether. Breguet began his next design whilst under the German yoke as the G.34 and this became the basis of the G.111 design seen in the museum, initially designated the G.11E.

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Wiki tells us more: "Though a much larger aircraft [than the Gyroplane Laboratoire], the G.11E used the same coaxial, three-blade twin-rotor layout as on the Gyroplane Laboratoire. It was initially powered by a fan-cooled 179 kW (240 hp) Potez 9E nine-cylinder radial engine mounted amidships, under the concentric rotor shafts. There was a 6.5:1 speed reduction gearing between the engine and the rotor drive. The rotors are built around tapered tube spars, which carry ribs and are Dural clad at the leading edges and with alloy over 3-ply elsewhere. They are mounted on flapping hinges and have drag hinge dampers. The control column alters cyclic pitch via a pair of swashplates and pedals make torque corrections and control yaw by changing the relative collective pitch of the two rotors. A mechanical inertial governor limited rotor accelerations; the pilot could increase the collective pitch over that set by the governor but not below it, emergencies apart."

"The G.11E's fuselage has a tapered, oval section. The forward part is a light alloy monocoque containing the well-glazed cockpit, accessed by two sliding doors. The rear fuselage is a steel tube structure, covered in fabric, bearing a tall T-tail with a moving, one-piece tailplane which corrected the cyclic pitch via the control column to prevent once per revolution pitch oscillations. A wide track undercarriage has main wheels mounted on horizontal V-struts from the fuselage bottom and with a single bracing strut to the mid-fuselage on each side. The first flight was made on 21 May 1949 but tests showed that the G.11E was underpowered, so a decision was made to replace the Potez engine with a bigger nine-cylinder radial, a 336 kW (450 hp) Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior. The type name was changed to G.111 and some re-design accompanied the power increase; the rotor diameter was increased by 1.00 m (3 ft 3 in) and the fuselage lengthened by 480 mm (1 ft 7 in) to include two more seats so that four passengers could be carried. Empty and maximum weights increased to 1,476 kg (3,254 lb) and 1,476 kg (3,254 lb) respectively."

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Finally for today and the Hall des Voilures Tournantes, the SNCASO SO.1110 Ariel II, a peculiar development combining the efficiency of jet propulsion and the practicality of a piston engine in an overweight and needlessly complex mess of a helicopter! From wiki: "The S.O.1100 Ariel I was first flown in 1947, it was a light all-metal helicopter with an enclosed two-seat cabin. Power was provided by a Mathis G8 engine which drove a Turbomeca compressor. The low-pressure air output from the compressor was ducted to each of the three rotor blades to the ends of each blade. At the tip of each blade was a combustion chamber where the air was mixed with fuel and ignited. The Ariel had a short tail boom with twin vertical tail surfaces. On 23 March 1949. an improved S.O.1110 Ariel II was flown, it was a similar configuration to the Ariel I was had revised tail surfaces. The final variant was the S.O.1120 Ariel III which had a combined Turbomeca Arrius turbine-compressor rather than the two units of the earlier aircraft. With the space made from the power changes, an extra seat was fitted. Another difference was the tail unit, the Ariel II had a single fin and rudder and used jet efflux from the turbine to provide directional control, a directional vane linked to the rudder directed the efflux."

With the complicated means of propulsion adding considerable weight to a basic airframe, the Ariel was not proceeded with but did lead to the Djinn, the first turbine-powered helicopter to be put into production.

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In the next instalment, the Hall de l'Entre-Duex-Guerres...