Breguet

From Wings of Linen

Early in the war, Société des Avions Louis Breguet of Villacoublay, Paris, produced several pushers, but it was not until the advent of the Breguet 14 that the company found a true hit. That plane became one of the most respected two-seaters of the entire war.

Louis Breguet's designs were never elegant, but they were robust thanks to their all-metal airframe construction, a design for which Breguet became known as a pioneer. Early planes were mostly pushers (at the insistence of the French General Staff, who wanted the observer to have an uninterrupted field of view). But with the Breguet 14 he finally got to build a tractor which combined robust construction and a powerful twelve-cylinder engine.[1]

Production aircraft from the Great War or shortly thereafter include:

References

Notes
  1. ↑ A pair of Breguet 13s, also known as the X or AG4, were built and used in the earliest months of the war, but they were soon written off.[2] "Breguet 13" may have also been the name of prototypes leading to the Breguet 14.
  2. ↑ The 14B1 was a single-seat bomber variant where the pilot sat where the observer would normally be and the pilot's area had additional fuel tanks. Several were built and a couple may have made their way to active units for field-testing.[3]
  3. ↑ The 14E2 was an American training variant with a Fiat A-12 or A-12bis engine.[4]
  4. ↑ The 14S (S for Sanitaire) was an flying ambulance version, with two stretchers in the rear fuselage.[3]
Citations
  1. ↑ Bruce'67, p.4.
  2. ↑ Davilla, p.86.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bruce'67, p.10.
  4. ↑ Bruce'67, p.9.
Bibliography
  • J.M. Bruce and Jean Noel, Profile Publications 157: The Breguet 14. Great Britain: Profile Publications Ltd., 1967.
  • Dr. James J. Davilla and Arthur M. Soltan. French Aircraft of the First World War. Flying Machines Press, 1997. ISBN 0-9637110-4-0.
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