Dewoitine D.333

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Dewoitine D.332 Emeraude , D.333
Dewoitine D.333 Cassiopée F-ANQB Algérie 1938.jpg
D.333 F-ANQB Cassiopée
Type: Passenger plane
Design country:

FranceFrance France

Manufacturer:

Dewoitine

First flight:

July 11, 1933

Commissioning:

1933/1935

Number of pieces:

332: 1
333: 3

The Dewoitine D.332 and D.333 were forerunners of the Dewoitine D.338 . They were three-engine low-wing aircraft in all-metal construction with a rigid chassis. The prototype D.332 was lost in a crash in 1934.
The three Dewoitine D.333 series machines were used on the mail line to South America from 1936. At the end of 1937, the two remaining machines were transferred to South America and flew there for Air France until 1940 .

Building history

The prototype D.332 Emeraude

The Dewoitine D.332 was a three-engine all-metal low -wing aircraft . It was the prototype for a mail and passenger plane for the line to French Indochina . In the driver's cab immediately in front of the wing, the captain and copilot sat next to each other, behind them was the radio operator's workstation. This was followed by a cabin for eight passengers behind the wing. The front legs of the rigid landing gear had a trouser-like panel. The machine was powered by three Hispano-Suiza 9V radial engines that were built under license from the American Wright Cyclone engine .

Use of the prototype

The Emeraude before the start to Saigon

The prototype first flew on July 11, 1933 under the name Emeraude (French: "Smaragd") and then made demonstration flights to various European capitals. On September 7, 1933, the Emeraude reached a class world record when it under Marcel Doret with Terrasson and Lecarme via Villacoublay with a payload of 2,000 kg over 1000 km a speed of 259.56 km / h and over 2000 km 255.25 km / h reached; In doing so, it broke the existing records for payloads of 1000 kg and 500 kg on the almost eight-hour flight over 2000 km. Since the type was to be used by Air France to Indochina, the machine started as F-AMMY on December 21, 1933 for a demonstration flight to Saigon, where it arrived on December 28, 1933 after a flight time of 48.5 hours and the expectations the future user fulfilled. On the return flight, the Emeraude flew only 400 km from its destination Paris- Le Bourget on the evening of January 15, 1934 in a heavy snow storm against a hill near Corbigny ( Nièvre department ) and was totally destroyed. All ten occupants were burned with the machine. The Emeraude left Saigon on January 5, 1934 and was u. a. Flown to Lyon via Karachi , Baghdad and Marseille . The cause of the crash was presumably a heavy icing of the aircraft. On board were André Launay (pilot), who had already made mail flights with the Fokker F.VII from Syria to Indochina, Camille Crampel (flight engineer) and Ferdinand Queyrelm (radio navigator), as well as the governor-general of Indochina , Pierre MA, as passengers Pasquier (* 1877), the Air France directors Maurice Noguès (* 1889) and Maurice Balazuc, the General Director for Civil Aviation of the French Ministry of Aviation , Emmanuel Chaumié (* 1890) with his wife Colette and his assistant Captain Brusseau as well as the journalist Jean-Jacques Larrieu, who was supposed to report on the flight for the Ministry of Aviation.

The Dewoitine D.333

Body parts of the Dewoitine D.333 before assembly

Despite the most serious accident for the newly formed airline for a number of years, Air France ordered three aircraft of a considerably reinforced version as the Dewoitine D.333 . The improved model for ten passengers was over 1.5 t heavier and first flew on January 17, 1935 from Toulouse-Francazal under the provisional registration F-AKHA.

First Dewoitine D.333 with its provisional registration number

The first machine was delivered to Air France on May 4, 1935 as the F-ANQA with the name Antarès . It was followed by the F-ANQB Cassiope in May 1935 and the F-ANQC Altair in March 1936 . On May 8, 1936, the type was given permission to transport passengers and the machines were used on the post line from Toulouse via Casablanca to Dakar. The first use with passengers between Toulouse and Casablanca took place with the Antar è s in July 1936.
On a flight from Dakar to Casablanca the Antar è s (F-ANQA) disappeared on October 25, 1937 during heavy thunderstorms off the Moroccan coast. As for the victims of the crash of the Emeraude in 1934, a memorial service was held in the Invalides in Paris for the six people missing with the Antar è s (five members of Air France and one other passenger)

The prototype of the improved Dewoitine D.338

In December 1937 Air France decided to move the two remaining machines to South America and to replace them on the line from France to Dakar with the improved Dewoitine D.338 with 15 passenger seats. On December 13, 1937, the F-ANQB Cassiopée under Léon Antoine was the first Dewoitine D.333 to be transported with a passenger by air from Dakar to South America. The F-ANQC Altair followed in March 1938. From March 1939 replaced the new Dewoitine D.338 F-AQBR (Wn ° 18, Ville de Pau ) and F-AQBT (Wn ° 20, Ville de Chatres ) the Cassiopée and Altaïr on the line from Natal to Buenos Aires. The two older D.333s were stationed in the Argentine capital and on their way to the Andes, which were flown over with twin-engine Potez 62 (since 1936) and then Douglas DC 3 (F-ARQJ, 1939), and used in Argentina. Until the French surrender in June 1940, the two Dewoitine D.333s remained in service on the South American part of the post line and at the time of the French surrender were still in neutral Argentina.

In Argentine service

Flag of Argentina.svg

The Dewoitine D.333 aircraft, which had been decommissioned in Buenos Aires , were sold to the Argentine Air Force in 1942, which they were designated as T-172 (ex-F-ANQB Cassiopée ) and T-173 (ex F-ANQC Altaïr ) in the 2nd transport squadron from El Palomar near Buenos Aires until July 1946 and 1947 respectively. In 1943 Argentina also bought the two Dewoitine D.338 from Air France in South America, which were used as T-170 and T-171 in the same season until 1947. The buyer of the four machines was the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC), which, however, sold the machines to the Argentine Air Force after they were acquired , where they were finally decommissioned in 1947.

Technical specifications

Parameter Dewoitine D.332 D.333 Bloch MB-300 D.338 D.620 D.342
First flight 07/11/1933 January 17, 1935 11.1935 August 9, 1935 10/22/1936 11/23/1938
built 1 3 1 31 1 1
crew 3 3 3 3 3 3
Passengers 8th 10 24 12 to 22 30th 24
length 18.95 m 19.20 m 25.31 m 22.13 m 23.59 m 22.13 m
span 29.00 m 28.79 m 28.89 m 29.38 m 29.36 m 26.95 m
height 5,350 m 5.84 m 6.25 m 5.27 m 5.72 m 5.57 m
Wing area 96 m² 99 m² 82 m²
Empty mass 5,010 kg 6,775 kg 8,875 kg 7,905 kg 6,900 kg
Takeoff mass 9,340 kg 11,000 kg 13,075 kg 11,150 kg 12,760 kg 15,500 kg
Cruising speed 250 km / h 260 km / h 285 km / h 260 km / h 300 km / h
Top speed 300 km / h 300 km / h 330 km / h 310 km / h 350 km / h 390 km / h
Service ceiling 6500 m 6500 m 8000 m 4900 m 7700 m
Range 2000 km 2025 km 1400 km 2060 km 2100 km 1000 km
three engines Hispano-Suiza 9V HS 9V-10 Gnome & Rhone 14K HS 9V-17 G&R 14 Kdrs G&R 14 N
Power 3 × 575 hp 575 hp 915 hp 650 hp 740 hp 960 hp

literature

  • Gérard Bousquet: Les Paquebots Volants - Les hydravions transocéaniques francais , éditions Larivière, 2006, ISBN 2-914205-00-7 .
  • Carlo Demand: The great Atlantic flights from 1919 to the present day. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-87943-909-5 .
  • Kenneth Munson: Airplanes 1919-1939 , Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1974, ISBN 3-280-00653-8
  • Jean Romeyer: L'Aviation Civile Francaise , de Gigord 3rd edition, Paris 1938,

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FAI Record File Num # 8809
  2. ↑ FAI Record File Num # 8810, # 8811, # 8812
  3. ↑ Noguès came from Air Orient and its predecessor Air Union Lignes d´Orient and had contributed significantly to the opening of the post line to Indochina, he carried out the first flight with a Fokker F.VII from Syria to Indochina.
  4. ↑ Dewoitine 332 Emeraude
  5. ↑ Pierre Lauroua: L'aviation civile - une administration dans Paris - 1919-2009 . Mission Mémoire de l'aviation civile, 2012, ISBN 978-2-11-129156-0 , p. 14 (French, full text on aviation-civile.gouv.fr ).
  6. ↑ Pierre Lauroua: L'aviation civile - une administration dans Paris - 1919-2009 . Mission Mémoire de l'aviation civile, 2012, ISBN 978-2-11-129156-0 , p. 15 (French, full text on aviation-civile.gouv.fr ).
  7. ↑ Crew: Pilot Marcel Goret, radio operator Rene Bourguignon and mechanic Auguste Trastour and as passengers the chief pilot of the company, Paul Guerrero (* 1902, 56 Atlantic flights) and the navigator André Salvat, who joined the record flight crew of the Farman F .222 F-APKY Ville de Dakar had belonged to South America
  8. ^ Invitation card for the celebration on December 2, 1937
  9. ^ Demand: Atlantic flights , pp. 85, 199
  10. ↑ Comodoro (R) Roberto BRIEND: Aviones que equiparon a la Aviación Militar Argentina - Part III
  11. ↑ Dewoitine D.332 Emeraude
  12. ^ Dewoitine D.333
  13. ↑ Bloch MB-300 Pacifique
  14. ↑ Dewoitine D.338
  15. ↑ Dewoitine D.620
  16. ↑ Dewoitine D.342