Couzinet 70
| Couzinet 70 | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Type: | Mail plane |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
February 11, 1932 |
| Commissioning: |
1933 |
| Number of pieces: |
1 |
The Couzinet 70 was a French mail plane that made its maiden flight in 1932. The three-engine machine was mostly made of wood and crossed the South Atlantic from Saint-Louis (Senegal) to Natal (Brazil) on January 16, 1933 under Jean Mermoz (1901–1936 ) . The machine's designer, René Couzinet (1904–1956), was one of the four-man crew on the flight of 3180 km in 14:25 h (~ 220.56 km / h).
The return flight began on May 15th. On May 21, 1933, the plane landed in Le Bourget in front of 15,000 spectators. The overhauled and converted aircraft carried out three more round-trip flights over the South Atlantic in 1934 as Couzinet 71 in service with Air France .
Development history
On May 7, 1928, the first flight of the three-engine long-haul aircraft Couzinet 10 Arc en ciel (rainbow) by the 23-year-old designer René Couzinet took place. The wooden low-wing aircraft with a wingspan of 27 meters and a length of 15.45 meters had a rigid landing gear and was powered by three Hispano-Suiza engines of the type 8Ac, each with 180 hp. With a take-off mass of 9,300 kg, the machine, which was intended for a four-man crew, reached 230 km / h, a peak altitude of 6,000 m and should have a range of 3,000 km. The experienced pilot Maurice Drouhin, who had already set long-distance records with a Farman F.60 Goliath , was involved in the development.
The Couzinet prototype was rebuilt from July 1928. The installation of a Hispano-Suiza 12Lb type engine with 600 hp in the nose of the fuselage extended the machine, now known as the Couzinet 27 Arc-en-Ciel , to 15.68 m and increased the takeoff weight to 10,230 kg. The top speed increased to 240 km / h; a summit height of 6800 m and a range of 6000 km should be possible. The converted machine crashed during the test flights on August 8, 1928. Mechanic Georges Lanet was killed instantly and pilot Maurice Drouhin succumbed to his injuries two days later. The radio operator Jean Manuel and the engineer Marcel Gianoli survived the crash, seriously injured.
In his workshops in Meudon, the industrialist Emile-Louis Letord provided the young designer with a hall to build a new, somewhat enlarged machine that was to receive three 600 HP Hispano-Suiza 12 Nb engines. On February 17, 1930, a great fire destroyed Letord's workshops in Meudon. In addition to another Couzinet prototype, the almost completed Couzinet 28 GR Arc-en-Ciel II also burned .
Couzinet was able to build another large three-engine model in its own workshops in Levallois-Perret . This Couzinet 70 Arc-en-Ciel III received 650 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Nb engines and a wingspan of 30 m with a length of 16.13 m. The new transatlantic model made its maiden flight on February 11, 1932 in the hands of factory pilot Jules Landry. The wooden machine again had a curved fuselage, the upper part of which merged into the tail unit. The rigid landing gear had huge, streamlined fairings. After three short flights, the machine was modified and the two side motors were newly installed, offset by a few degrees. In September 1932, test flights began again with the aircraft now known as Couzinet 70bis Arc-en-Ciel III , which was approved as F-AMBV. It was supposed to run a return flight on the post line across the South Atlantic with government support. The Aéropostale suggested their star pilot Jean Mermoz, which initially found little approval from the designer Couzinet, who preferred a "normal" airline pilot to emphasize the performance of his design. After meeting Mermoz in person, he changed that mind and they both became close friends. On November 29th, Mermoz led the machine for the first time on a scenic flight over northern France of over three hours. A longer flight to Algiers planned for December had to be canceled. The machine had completed 42 flights but only 28 flight hours by the time it took off for South America.
The first flight to South America
On January 7, 1933 Mermoz started with the copilot Pierre Carretier, the navigator Louis Mailloux, the radio operator Jean Manuel (who had survived the crash of the 1st Arc-en-Ciel ) and the mechanics Camille Georges Jousse (1887–1945 †) and Maurice Mariault and the designer Couzinet on board for the Atlantic flight in Le Bourget . The 650 km to Istres near Marseille were covered in 2.5 hours (~ 267 km / h). The next stage of 16.5 hours followed on January 12th across the Mediterranean and along the African coast over 3935 km (~ 238.5 km / h) to Port Étienne and was longer than the planned Atlantic crossing. On the 13th, the machine flew 650 km further to the planned starting point Saint-Louis (Senegal).
On January 16, 1933, the start of the transatlantic flight over 3180 km to Natal. The mechanic Mariault stayed behind to save weight. After a flight of fourteen hours and 25 minutes, the Arc-en-Ciel III landed in Natal. She had covered 3180 km (~ 220.56 km / h) and made the fastest crossing of the South Atlantic to date. On January 17th, the Arc-en-Ciel flew on to Rio de Janeiro (2290 km, ten hours, ~ 229 km / h) and then on 21/22. January in ten hours flight on with a stopover in Pelotas to Buenos Aires .
The machine began its return flight on February 10, 1933 from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro (2360 km, ten hours and ten minutes, ~ 232 km / h) with two passengers. In addition to the designer Couzinet, the journalist Paul Bringuier was on board, who accompanied and reported on the entire return flight. The flight to Natal was continued on the 11th (2290 km, ten hours 35 minutes, ~ 217.3 km / h) and finally on May 15, 1933 from Natal (2890 km, 17 hours and ten minutes, ~ 169 km / h) ) carried out the mail flight over the South Atlantic, for which Mermoz's old mechanic Collenot (1902–1936 †) replaced the sick Jousse. The left engine failed after 12.5 hours, 700 km from the African coast, and the Arc-en-Ciel had to end its twin-engine flight. In Dakar, the mail carried was handed over to a regular service machine on the mail line.
Mermoz continued the flight with the Arc-en-Ciel and the only temporarily available left engine on the 17th to Saint-Louis (Senegal) (225 km, 55 minutes, ~ 245.4 km / h), on the 18th to Cape Juby (225 km, 25 minutes, ~ 245.4 km / h), on the 19th to Casablanca (965 km, four hours and twelve minutes, ~ 229.7 km / h), on the 20th to Toulouse (1845 km, eight hours 50 minutes, ~ 208.7 km / h) and on May 21, 1933 to Le Bourget (680 km, three hours ten minutes, ~ 214.7 km / h), where it was received by a large number of spectators.
More Atlantic flights
After this return flight, the machine was modified to the Couzinet 71 . The fuselage was lengthened by introducing new fuselage parts. The mid-engine was moved further forward by inserting a new fuselage section in front of the driver's cab, further new fuselage sections moved the tail unit further back. In May 1934, a number of short test flights were carried out in Villacoublay under various test pilots . On May 11th, the transfer of the Arc-en-Ciel under Mermoz took place in 3:20 hours to Istres, where, among other things, a full load start of the machine and its radio equipment was tested.
On May 29, 1934 there was another flight to South America under Mermoz with Jean Dabry (1901-1990) as copilot and navigator, Léopold Gimié (1903-1943) as radio navigator, both of them in 1930 with Mermoz in the Latécoère 28.3 F-AJNQ Comte de la Vaulx had made their first transatlantic flight, as well as Mermoz's long-time companion Collenot as a mechanic, who had already accompanied the Arc-en-Ciel's return flight the previous year.
The flight began on May 18, 1934 in Istres with a nine-hour flight to Casablanca and a flight of 11.5 hours the following day to Saint-Louis (Senegal), where the mail was to be picked up the following day. This had to be canceled because the condition of the engines could not be properly clarified. The machine was relocated to Dakar because a hall was available there for careful examination. The use in the postal service was therefore postponed by a week because a fault in the engine cooling was discovered. After the necessary repairs, the plane was moved back to Saint-Louis, where it took off by post to Natal on the 28th and the flight was carried out without any problems.
The return flight was not successful until July 31, after two failed attempts. On June 3, 1934, loaded with mail and with the same crew, the machine tried to start at full throttle. But she did not come up to the necessary speed and seemed to sink into the ground, so that Mermoz aborted the start. As the crew disembarked, they saw two deep ruts in the area from the attempt to take off. It was no longer usable and the mail had to be handed over to an Aviso for transport to Dakar. The flight of the Arc-en-Ciel was postponed to the next bright moon night.
The postponement of the return flight by four weeks made it possible on June 14 to check the airfield designated as the emergency landing site on the island of Fernando de Noronha , 400 km from Natal. The available space seemed unsuitable and the mountainous island generated very disturbing winds. During the second attempt to restart on the island, the machine got into a swamp. Since many helpers were available on the island due to the prisoners and the poverty of the residents, the machine could be pushed back onto solid ground. Then the machine managed the return start to Natal, just under two hours away by plane.
On July 3, 1934, the machine took off from the improved runway in Natal, but had to abort the flight after two hours due to the weather conditions. After an absence of four hours, the Arc-en-Ciel landed again in Natal without first releasing the fuel that was still in abundance. The return flight took place in the following full moon phase on July 31st to Porto Praia, only 2,600 km away on the Cape Verde Islands . The Latécoère 300 'Croix-du-Sud' from Dakar and its naval crew met her that night on her second flight to Brazil. The airport at Praia proved to be very suitable and after supplementation in inventories of gasoline and oil was the Arc-en-Ciel after 6.5 hours back in the air on the way to Villa Cisneros , where the post to a waiting Latécoère 28 issued has been.
One month later, the Couzinet 71 was used again . The plane took off on September 2nd from Casablanca to Villa Cisneros (6:40 h flight) for its third mail flight to Brazil. Fernand Clavère († 1935) replaced Dabry as navigator in the crew; Again, the designer René Couzinet accompanied the flight as a passenger / co-pilot. After taking over the post office, the Arc-en-Ciel flew on to Porto Praïa (1300 km, ~ 200 km / h) with Jean Foã (1902–1946), director of the development of the Air France route network, as an additional passenger. Its 120 kg prompted Couzinet to forego the Atlantic crossing on September 3, which took 13.5 hours. During the flight, the Latécoère 300 'Croix-du-Sud' , which was approaching again, was spotted. The return flight succeeded on 25/26. September with Henri Guillaumet (1902–1940) as an additional co-pilot. In 13:10 h Praïa was reached, where a leak was discovered in a cooler, the removal of which delayed the onward flight to Port Etienne only insignificantly.
The fourth and last flight of the Couzinet 71 'Arc-en-Ciel' to South America began on October 1, 1934 in Port Etienne. The test flight the day before was carried out for the first time by Guillaumet. Again the first stage led in 6.5 hours to Porto Praïa, where you stayed overnight. When the engines were already running to start, Collenot discovered a noise and a glow in the exhaust of the right engine. A damaged valve was discovered to be the cause, the replacement of which in the tropical rain delayed the flight to Natal (1.35 p.m.) by one day.
On 23/24 In October 1934 the fourth return flight to Africa took place, in which Lieutenant Colonel René Davet, one of the aviation minister's aides, took part as a passenger.
From November 1934, the four-engine flying boat Blériot 5190, also developed for the service to South America, carried out its first flights to South America. In total, the French were able to carry out eight flights to South America and back in 1934, three each of the Couzinet 71 'Arc-en-Ciel' and the Latécoère 300 'Croix-du-Sud' and two of the Blériot 5190 'Santos-Dumont' . Deutsche Lufthansa , which has been a competitor since 1933 , made 23 return flights in 1934 with its Dornier Wal flying boats , which were launched from catapult ships ( Westphalia and Swabia ). In addition, there were twelve trips to South America by the airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin , before whose first trip to South America in 1930 the French had carried out the first mail flight with the Latécoère 28.3 'Comte de la Vaulx' , which remained a single flight and which was followed by the first flight of the Arc in 1933 -en-Ciel had followed.
Another fate
With the overhaul of the machine after the mail flights in 1934, further modifications of the machine were connected. The number of those who objected to the wooden machine increased (fire hazard, susceptibility to tropical rain), as Air France preferred the newly developed four-engine flying boats for the South America service. With the Farman 220 , another land plane was also available from 1935, which finally established itself as a carrier of the French mail traffic to South America. In 1937 the Couzinet 71 Arc-en-Ciel was separated and scrapped without having made another long flight. After 1936, the flying boats that replaced them suffered this fate.
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Couzinet 10 | Couzinet 27 | Couzinet 70 | Couzinet 71 | Couzinet 33 | Couzinet 100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| crew | 4th | 3 | ||||
| length | 15.47 m | 15.68 m | 16.15 m | 20.18 m | 11.73 m | 9.72 m |
| span | 27.00 m | 30.00 m | 16.16 m | 13.50 m | ||
| height | 3.90 m | 4.00 m | 4.50 m | 2.75 m | 2.40 m | |
| Wing area | 92.75 m² | 98.45 m² | 34.45 m² | 19.93 m² | ||
| Wing extension | 7.9 | 9.1 | 7.6 | 9.1 | ||
| Empty mass | 4,200 kg | 4,900 kg | 7,480 kg | 7,364 kg | 1,600 kg | 862 kg |
| Takeoff mass | 9,300 kg | 10,230 kg | 16,610 kg | 14,416 kg | 3,500 kg | 1,400 kg |
| Cruising speed | 236 km / h | 220 km / h | ||||
| Top speed | 230 km / h | 240 km / h | 280 km / h | 260 km / h | 205 km / h | |
| Service ceiling | 6200 m | 6800 m | 5500 m | 4500 m | ||
| Range | 3000 km | 6000 km | 4500 km | 1700 km | ||
| three engines | Hispano-Suiza 8Ac | one HS 12Nb two HS 8Ac |
HS 12Nb | Gipsy III | Salmson 9Adb | |
| power | 3 × 180 hp | 1 × 600 HP 2 × 180 HP |
3 × 650 hp | 3 × 120 hp | 3 × 45 hp | |
Similar machines
On October 21, 1930, the first flight of the three-engine Couzinet 30 , a four-seater touring aircraft with a wingspan of 16.16 m and a length of 11.41 m, was also mainly made of wood . The machine was driven by Salmson 9Ad radial engines with 40 HP . The Couzinet 33 'Biarritz' mail plane was developed from it and its maiden flight took place on November 25, 1931. From March 6 to April 5, 1932, it was the first aircraft to fly from France to New Caledonia . In contrast, the Biarritz was powered by three 120-hp de Havilland 'Gipsy' III in-line engines. In February 1931 the first flight of the only postal plane Couzinet 21 with three 85 HP Walter ' Vega' I radial engines took place, the wingspan of which was also 16.16 m. The similar touring aircraft Couzinet 22 flew for the first time in December 1932 with 95 HP Salmson 7Ac radial engines and only one copy was built.
On June 4, 1932, the first flight of the three-engine mail plane Couzinet 40, built according to the same principles, with a wingspan of 28.00 m and a length of 16.10 m took place. The machine was driven by 350 hp Gnome & Rhône 7Kd radial engines.
The only Couzinet 100 touring plane took off on its maiden flight in June 1933. Also made mainly of wood, the machine had a wingspan of 13.50 m and a length of 9.72 m. The machine was driven by 45 HP Salmson 9Adb radial engines. Two more mini Arc-en-Ciels were built in 1933 as Couzinet 103 with a length of 10.05 m and 80 hp Salmson 9Adr radial engines and in 1934 as Couzinet 101 with the same length and 75 hp Pobjoy R star engines.
On October 3, 1933, the Couzinet 80 training aircraft also flew a twin-engine model with 135 hp Salmson 9Nc radial engines and a length of 11.25 m, which was created by converting the Couzinet 30 (built in 1930).
literature
- Enzo Angelucci, Paolo Matricardi: World Aircraft 1918–1935. Book Club Ass., 1977.
- Carlo Demand: The great Atlantic flights from 1919 to the present day. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-87943-909-5 .
Web links
- Claude Faix: 1927, un projet fantastique 2 parts
- Couzinet 10, the first Arc en Ciel French with picture
- converted to Couzinet 27, Arc en Ciel French with picture
- Couzinet 70 'Arc en Ciel' III
Individual evidence
- ^ Couzinet 10 Arc-en-Ciel
- ^ Couzinet 27 Arc-en-Ciel
- ↑ Faix: Quand les Arcs-en-Ciel traversaient l'Atlantique , Vol.II, p. 61
- ↑ 1st outward flight 3rd / 4th January; back January 31 / February 1, 1934
- ↑ one of the four dead in the crash of the Laté 28 F-AJIQ N ° 906 on November 4, 1935 off Aracaju , Brazil
- ^ A b Daniel V. Gribbin: Aéropostale and Air France — A Decade of South Atlantic Airmail ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 5
