René Couzinet

René Couzinet (1933)

René Couzinet (born July 20, 1904 in Saint-Martin-des-Noyers , Département Vendée , France , † December 16, 1956 , Paris XVI ^e ) was a French engineer and aircraft manufacturer .

Couzinet was already fascinated by the flight of birds in his youth and incorporated their shapes into his later designs. He graduated in 1924 as an aerospace engineer from the Arts et Métiers engineering school in Angers and built his first aircraft at the age of 23 , the Air Couzinet 10 , the first of three of the Arc-en-Ciel ( rainbow ) series. At that time he served as an officer for the 34th Aviation Regiment at Le Bourget .

The aircraft featured a number of technical innovations, including fully faired, in-flight accessible engines and multiple tanks that allowed a range of 10,000 km. Pilot Maurice Drouhin and his mechanic were killed in an accident on August 8, 1927. The second model went up in flames on February 17, 1930 in a fire in the Meudon factory provided by industrialist Emile-Louis Letord.

In early 1932, the third aircraft in the series, called the Couzinet 80, was completed . A year later, Jean Mermoz , a colleague of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry at the Argentine Air Transport Company , flew it to Buenos Aires with Couzinet . It was the first flight over the South Atlantic and the two pilots were welcomed as heroes back in France. Couzinet found himself at the height of his fame at the age of 29.

Couzinet Arc-en-Ciel in Fernando de Noronha, June 14, 1934

In the following years he built around twenty more aircraft. During this time Couzinet was often involved in quarrels with the authorities, so he started a prototype without the approval of the STAé (Service technique de l'Aéronautique). His persistence was ultimately rewarded, and the twin-engine Air Couzinet 10 was used for scheduled flights by the French post office from 1937.

Couzinet and Mermoz became close friends and also worked together to improve the performance, quality and safety of aircraft. So they tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to convince the aviation authorities to replace the seaplanes then preferred on the overseas routes with conventional designs.

It was also one of the Latécoère seaplanes in which Mermoz was killed in a crash in December 1936. Couzinet then married his friend's widow, Gilberte Chazottes, in October 1939.

After the occupation of France in 1940, Couzinet refused to work with the Hitler-friendly Vichy regime and went to Brazil , where President Gétulio Vargas made him head of national aircraft production. At the end of the Second World War he returned to France, but could not build on his earlier successes in aircraft construction .

He was now engaged in the design and construction of hydrofoils , for which he had already applied for a patent in 1928. The best-known model was the RC 125 with propeller drive presented in Brazil in 1946 , also intended for operation on South American rivers. This was just as unsuccessful as the following boats.

In the 1950s, Couzinet began to be interested in vertical take-off aircraft, like many designers of the time. With the RC 360 he presented an unusual design reminiscent of UFOs : the top and bottom rotated in opposite directions, powered by six motors, and downward airflow generated by 48 controllable nozzles on the outer ring was supposed to keep the aircraft in the air. A small jet engine was provided under the fuselage for propulsion . With a diameter of 13.6 m, an area of ​​60 m² and a maximum take-off weight of 12 t, the model could also have transported people. Several wind tunnel tests were carried out. However the announced for the April 1957 first flight did not happen: The project was set when Couzinet on 16 December 1956 together with his wife Gilberte suicide committed.

Web links

• Photos of the RC 360
• aerostories.fr - René Couzinet, from glory to decline, including a photo of the RC 360