Blériot 5190
| Blériot 5190 | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Type: | Flying boat |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
August 3, 1933 |
| Commissioning: |
November 1934 |
| Number of pieces: |
1 |
The Blériot 5190 was a French flying boat that made its first mail flight over the South Atlantic in November 1934 and then remained in the Air France airmail service over the South Atlantic until June 1937 . There was only one specimen of her that made a total of 38 Atlantic crossings .
Development and construction history
The machine was designed by Filippo Zappata and built by Blériot Aéronautique in Suresnes on behalf of the French Ministry of Aviation to be used in the air mail service to South America. The machine made its first flight on August 3, 1933 (note: August 11 is also mentioned in the literature) near Caudebec-en-Caux with the Blériot chief pilot Lucien Bossoutrot at the control stick and the designer, Filippo Zappata, on board. The machine, with a takeoff mass of 16.2 tons, took off from the Seine after 17 seconds . This was followed by about five months of tests at Caudebec-en-Caux and Cherbourg , which ended on January 6, 1934.
The machine was, on loan to the Air Ministry on 19 November 1934 by Air France with the aircraft marks registered F-ANLE and in honor of the dead of July 1932, aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont in the name of Santos-Dumont baptized. Bossoutrot first relocated the flying boat to the Étang de Berre near Marseille and then flew it with three passengers to Port-Lyautey in Morocco on November 22nd and from there to Dakar on the 23rd . On November 27, 1934, he and his eight-person crew (including the future Admiral Chief of Staff Henri Nomy as a flight engineer ) flew over the South Atlantic to Natal (Brazil) in 16 hours and 15 minutes .
After the four-engine Latécoère 300 , it was the second French flying boat that successfully flew across the South Atlantic.
After a second test crossing in December was also successful, the machine took up the scheduled mail service for Air France over the South Atlantic on February 4, 1935. By April 1, 1935, she made nine scheduled return flights, one a week, at the time the only machine available for this purpose. Then the Latécoère 300 Croix du Sud joined the Aéropostale, which was taken over by Air France in August 1933, and the Farman F.220B Le Centaure , with whom it shared this task. The Santos-Dumont was withdrawn for overhaul for three months after the arrival of these two machines and resumed service in July 1935. In March 1936, after her 30th Atlantic crossing, she was withdrawn from regular service again and taken to the Étang de Berre near Marseille for a major overhaul. She resumed the South American flights on April 5, 1937 and carried out four more round-trip flights by June 23, 1937. With a total of 38 transatlantic flights, it was Air France's most frequently used mail flying boat.
construction
The Blériot 5190 was a high-wing aircraft with a somewhat unusual shape. The hull made of duralumin was kept very low and resembled a submarine in shape . The four-man crew (commander, two pilots, a mechanic) and the radio system were housed in a large, semicircular pylon that resembled a submarine tower and connected the large Parasol wings to the fuselage. This "command post" was 4.00 m long, 1.20 m wide and 2.50 m high. Three of the four engines were on the front of the wing, a fourth with a pusher propeller in the middle of the rear behind the cockpit. The wings were so thick that it was possible to carry out engine repairs in flight. On both sides of the fuselage there was a float with a volume of 3 m 3 under the textile-covered wings. The aircraft was 26.00 m long and had a wingspan of 43.00 m. The wing size was 236 m 2 .
The flying boat had an empty weight of 12,750 kg and a takeoff mass of a maximum of 22,000 kg. The four water-cooled Hispano-Suiza twelve-cylinder V-engines of the type 12Nbr developed 485 kilowatts (650 hp ) each and enabled a top speed of 210 km / h. For the transatlantic flights up to 11,684 liters (8500 kg) of fuel could be carried in 16 tanks built into the fuselage, and the range was thus 5000 km . The permissible payload was only 600 kg, since a double crew of eight flew with them on these outward and return flights. For shorter flights in the Mediterranean , which would have required less fuel, a passenger capacity of up to 60 people was planned, but this did not happen.
Aftermath
Since the Santos-Dumont was the only available transatlantic flying boat in early 1935 , the Ministry of Aviation ordered three more copies of the Blériot 5190 . To finance the construction, the Blériot Aéronautique, already struggling with financial difficulties due to the construction of the first machine, took out large loans. When the construction contract was then surprisingly canceled without explanation and without compensation in spring 1936 , this forced the company into bankruptcy .
Technical data of French South Atlantic mail flying boats
| Parameter | Blériot 5190 | Latécoère 300 | Latécoère 301 | Loire 102 | Lioré & Olivier H-47 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First flight | 08/11/1933 | December 17, 1931 | 08/23/1935 | 05/13/1936 | July 25, 1936 |
| buildings | 1 | 3 + 3 | 1 | 5 | |
| crew | 4th | 4-5 | 5 | ||
| Passengers | 4 possible | ||||
| length | 26.0 m | 25.83 m | 26.15 m | 23.0 m | 21.57 m |
| span | 43.0 m | 44.20 m | 44.00 m | 34.00 m | 31.8 m |
| height | 6.3 m | 6.50 m | 7.98 m | 6.92 m | 7.15 m |
| Wing area | 242 m² | 306.7 m² | 298.3 m² | 136.54 m² | 135 m² |
| Empty mass | 12,310 kg | 11,723 kg | 10,860 kg | 10,100 kg | 10,270 kg |
| Takeoff mass | 22,075 kg | 22,952 kg | 23,060 kg | 18,530 kg | 19,565 kg |
| Cruising speed | 190 km / h | 160 km / h | 185 km / h | ||
| Top speed | 237 km / h | 220 km / h | 225 km / h | 270 km / h | 360 km / h |
| Service ceiling | 4750 m | 4600 m | 4300 m | 4600 m | 7000 m |
| Range | 4500 km | 4450 km | 3600 km | 4900 km | 4000 km |
| Engines | four HS 12Nbrs | four HS 12Nbr | four HS 12Kbrs1 | four HS 12Y (i / j) rs | |
| power | 650 PS (478 kW) each | 720 PS (530 kW) each | 960 PS (706 kW) each | ||
literature
- Gérard Bousquet: Les Paquebots Volants - Les hydravions transocéaniques francais , éditions Larivière, 2006, ISBN 2-914205-00-7
- Michael JH Taylor: Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London, 1989
Web links
- Blériot 5190 (F-ANLE c / n 01) Santos Dumont
- Historical video of the Blériot 5190 Santos-Dumont taking off and in flight at Dakar
- Blériot 5190, at Flying Boat Forum
- http://www.nickgrantadventures.com/acft_04.htm
- aviafrance.com