Gourdou-Leseurre Company

I just came across this French firm I hadn't heard of before, Gourdou-Leseurre. The firm broke up in 1934, but some of its aircraft served into WW2.

I particularly like the look of the GL-832 HY shipboard seaplane, which for 1931 (prototype, intro 1934) in an era of wire-braced shipboard biplanes is a notable exception, being a folding-wing monoplane with partial metal construction and clean lines, akin to the, albeit non-folding Arado Ar 196 of 1937. The GL-832 served in FIC at the time of the Japanese invasion in autumn 1940.



Shown here on the French cruiser Émile Bertin.



I wonder what happened to the company founders, Charles Gourdou and Jean Adolphe Leseurre. Did they join another French aeronautical firm or just vanish? I'll do some digging online.

Admiral Beez said:

I just came across this French firm I hadn't heard of before, Gourdou-Leseurre. The firm broke up in 1934, but some of its aircraft served into WW2.

I particularly like the look of the GL-832 HY shipboard seaplane, which for 1931 (prototype, intro 1934) in an era of wire-braced shipboard biplanes is a notable exception, being a folding-wing monoplane with partial metal construction and clean lines, akin to the, albeit non-folding Arado Ar 196 of 1937. The GL-832 served in FIC at the time of the Japanese invasion in autumn 1940.

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I wonder what happened to the company founders, Charles Gourdou and Jean Adolphe Leseurre. Did they join another French aeronautical firm or just vanish? I'll do some digging online.

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Charles Gourdou and Jean Adolphe Leseurre are both in the French edition of wikipedia. Unfortunately, I don't read (or speak) French, so I can't be sure about what it says, but neither article, as far as I can tell, mention anything about what they did after Gourdou-Leseurre was closed down. Since Gourdou was made an Officier de la Légion d'honneur, in 1938, one can presume he did something, but I've no idea what, although it seems likely that Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire, which absorbed Gourdou-Leseurre, continued to employ both men, at least until 1936, when the wikipedia article seems to say they separated (note, again, I don't really read French; I took the language many years ago and my knowledge is severely corroded)

(bold added in edit)