Morane-Saulnier H.

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Morane-Saulnier H.
Morane-Saulnier type H
Type: Fighter plane
Design country:

FranceFrance France

Manufacturer:

Morane-Saulnier

First flight:

1912

Commissioning:

1913

Production time:

1912-1915

The Morane-Saulnier types G and H were French monoplane or monoplane and were used as sport aircraft, later as reconnaissance and fighter aircraft in the First World War .

development

The single-seat Morane-Saulnier Type H or MoS Type 2 and the almost identical two-seat Type G were developed in 1912 by the brothers Léon and Robert Morane and their friend Raymond Saulnier as Type A sports aircraft . Both types were shoulder- deckers with line covering and twist control; they were exhibited together with the “Parasol” Type L at the Paris Air Show in 1913 and then went into series production. Its advanced design with the fully clad fuselage was from then on pioneering European aviation.

Type H

The French Air Force ordered 26 Type H aircraft, and the British Royal Flying Corps had some aircraft produced under license by the British manufacturer Grahame-White delivered from Hendon . More planes went to Russia , to the Aviation Militaire Belge , the Portuguese Aeronáutica Militar , the Danish Air Force and the Austro-Hungarian naval aviator in Austria-Hungary . 40 aircraft were ordered by the Ottoman air force . A French Type H that landed in Switzerland in June 1915 was taken over by the Swiss air force .

In Germany , the Pfalz-Flugzeugwerke in Speyer also acquired a building license and supplied the royal Bavarian air force with their A and E types , which were equipped with increasingly powerful engines and the latter with synchronized machine guns from 1915. Even Anton Fokker , a Dutch aviation pioneer and founder of the Fokker Aeroplanbau GmbH in Schwerin , was based in 1913 during the construction of his Fokker M.5 at the Morane; From this aircraft, Fokker developed other types in 1915, including the Fokker EI , the first German fighter aircraft suitable for the front.

Type G / GA

The two-seater Type G only differed from the single-seater version H in terms of its slightly larger wingspan and wing area. However, due to its greater weight, it was approx. 20 km / h slower than the single-seater. The French Air Force ordered 94 aircraft of this type, in Russia they were manufactured by Dux under license for the Russian Air Force . In addition to Sweden , the Spanish Aeronáutica Militar also took the Type G into service and operated three aircraft in Morocco until 1916 . One of the machines is preserved and exhibited in the Museo del Aire in Madrid .

As seaplanes equipped with floats, the type GA (60 HP Gnôme engine) or GB (80 HP Le Rhône engine) were produced.

In 1915, some Type G were built as single-seater, but these did not go into series production.

Type WR

A version WR with a glass cabin in front of the wings was also manufactured for Russia .

Aviation successes and military service

The Morane-Saulnier types G and H took part in numerous aviation competitions in the prewar period: In September 1912, Georges Legagneux achieved a height record. Roland Garros flew with a Type H from Tunis to Rome in December 1912 and won a prize for his precise landing maneuver at the second international aviation competition in Wiener Neustadt in June 1913 . On June 20, 1913, Marcel Brindejonc took off on his sensational flight over Europe, which took him 1,360 km from Villacoublay to Warsaw in 13 hours with stopovers in Wanne and Berlin , and then via St. Petersburg , Stockholm , Copenhagen and La Haye on July 2 to return to Paris. His Morane managed the 5,000 km tour without any problems. A seaplane version successfully competed in the Schneider Trophy seaplane race in Monaco , and Garros won the Grand Prix at the Italian seaplane competition on Lake Como . On September 20, 1913 Gustave Hamel won the Aerial Derby in England with an average speed of 122 km / h, later he impressed the English audience as a flying acrobat with his loops . On September 23, Garros flew non-stop over the Mediterranean in 7 hours and 53 minutes , from Fréjus in southern France via Corsica and Sardinia to Bizerta in Tunisia , where after the 740 km flight route he landed with only 5 of 200 liters of petrol in the tank . On October 16, 1916, Lieutenant Ronin began the first air mail service between Villacoublay and Pouillac near Bordeaux . From January 4 to February 3, 1914, Marc Pourpe covered the 4,400 km long distance in Africa with four stopovers . a. landed at Cairo in Egypt and Khartoum in Sudan . WL Brock finally won the Aerial Derby in 1914.

When the war started in 1914 , some Type H were used to defend Paris . However, their combat strength was low, as the pilots only had handguns. The Type H remained in service until mid-1915. The Type G was used for flight training even longer; the Russian air forces also used them at the front, although they did not have adequate armament. The Russian pilot Kazakov caused a sensation when he threw out ripping hooks attached to the tail of his aircraft in order to damage enemy aircraft and cause them to crash. His fellow aviator Nesterow brought down an Austrian plane in a fatal ram attack with his Morane-Saulnier G. Some Morane-Saulnier G's were still in use in the Russian Civil War in 1918 .

Mid-1915, the types G and H were gradually by the Morane-Saulnier N replaced.

Technical specifications

Parameter Data type H
crew 1
length 5.84 m
span 9.12 m
height 2.26 m
Empty mass 188 kg
Takeoff mass 444 kg
Top speed 140 km / h
Service ceiling 1000 m
Range 177 km
Engines a Gnôme or Le Rhône 9C rotary engine with 80 HP (59 kW)

photos

  • Morane Saulnier Type H in the Musée de l'air et de l'espace at Le Bourget Airport

  • Morane-Saulnier G "Artal" in the Museo del Aire in Madrid

  • Type H seized by the Swiss Army

  • The Swiss aircraft squadron in Dübendorf, in the foreground an interned Morane-Saulnier Type H

See also

literature

  • Kenneth Munson: Pioneering days , Orell Füssli-Verlag, Zurich 1969.
  • Heinz Nowarra: The Development of Aircraft 1914–1918 , Munich 1958.

Web links

Commons : Morane-Saulnier H  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WINGS PALETTE on wp.scn.ru, accessed on November 29, 2014.
  2. ↑ Morane-Saulnier G ( Memento from December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at www.ejercitodelaire.mde.es
  3. ↑ Piezas del Hangar 1 del Museo del Aire ( Memento from December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on www.ejercitodelaire.mde.es
  4. ^ Heinz Nowarra: The development of the aircraft 1914-1918 , Munich 1958, p. 76.