Morane-Saulnier L

Morane-Saulnier L
Type:	Fighter plane
Design country:	France
Manufacturer:	Société Anonyme des Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier
First flight:	August 1913
Commissioning:	1914
Production time:	1914-1915
Number of pieces:	about 600

The Morane-Saulnier L , also known as the “Morane-Parasol” , was a parachute (“Parasol”) developed in 1913 by the French company Société Anonyme des Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier and is considered the first fighter aircraft in military aviation.

development

In August 1913, Morane-Saulnier converted a type G machine into a wire-braced umbrella deck. This was the prototype of the Morane-Saulnier L, a two-seat reconnaissance aircraft that went into production in 1914.

The model had a box-shaped fuselage, a horseshoe-shaped engine fairing, a normal axle chassis and a tail consisting only of a small rudder and elevator, some series machines even received only one rigid fin. He had no ailerons, but the control around the longitudinal axis was done by twisting the wings.

commitment

The Morane-Saulnier L was ordered in large numbers at the beginning of the First World War under the military designation MS2 . Initially used as a reconnaissance aircraft, as a bomber and for the dropping of warfare agents, the machine survived numerous aerial battles in encounters with enemy machines, which were carried out by the crews with carbines . In this way, the pilots Gilbert and Bros de Puechredon achieved the first downing of a German reconnaissance aircraft on January 10, 1915.

Nevertheless, arming the flight crews with a carbine gave the aircraft little combat power. It had been forgotten that before the war , Raymond Saulnier had been working on an interrupter gearbox that would allow an MG to fire through the propeller circle without damaging the rotating propeller blades. However, tests had shown that the shooting behavior of the Hotchkiss machine guns supplied by the army with 8 mm ammunition was too unreliable for synchronization and could damage the propeller.

Capitaine de Vergnette, leader of the Escadrille MS.23, remembered these experiments. In his squadron, which has just been equipped with new machines of the Morane-Saulnier N type, numerous pre-war pilots served, including the famous record pilot and factory pilot of Morane-Saulnier Roland Garros . Garros was sent directly to his previous company in Villacoublay and had a Morane-Saulnier L equipped there with a Hotchkiss machine-gun that fired through the propeller circle; the propeller blades were provided with simple baffles for this purpose. Garros returned to the MS.23 with the Morane-Saulnier L and achieved his first historic aerial victory on April 1, 1915, quickly followed by two more. Then the pilot himself had to make an emergency landing behind the German lines and the invention fell into the hands of the enemy. Even Georges Guynemer , later one of the most famous French fighter pilot, scored his first aerial victory with a type L about a German two-seater on 19 July 1915th

Countries of operation

A Type L series ordered by Turkey was confiscated by the French government in favor of the French Aéronautique Militaire at the outbreak of the First World War . The Belgian air force also had aircraft of the Morane-Saulnier L model. After the start of the war, exports were made to the allies Russia and Great Britain. Morane-Saulnier L were successfully used by the Russian Air Force on the Eastern Front; 50 machines went to the Royal Flying Corps , 25 to the Royal Naval Air Service and flew on the Western Front and over the Aegean Sea . The destruction of the German airship LZ 37 by the British naval aviator Lieutenant Warneford on June 7, 1915 over Ghent , achieved by dropping incendiary bombs on the zeppelin hull, caused a sensation . The Canadian Captain M. Bell-Irving of the No. 1 (RFC) Squadron, which attacked three enemy aircraft with its Morane-Saulnier L on December 19, 1915, shot down one and drove the other two away. However, these successes remained isolated cases after the German air force had succeeded from the summer of 1915 in largely establishing and asserting air superiority for themselves.

On June 29, 1915, on the return flight after a bomb attack on the German Zeppelin shipyard in Friedrichshafen, Sergeant Eugene Gilbert from the Escadrille MS.49 landed with his Morane-Saulnier L near Rheinfelden in Switzerland . The aircraft was confiscated and used as a trainer for pilot training in aerial combat.

The Swedish designer Enoch Thulin produced a copy of the Morane-Saulnier L with the Thulin D "Parasol" . A Thulin D brought from Sweden became the second aircraft of the Finnish Air Force in March 1918 .

The Morane-Saulnier L in a performance comparison

Surname	country	Motor power	Max. speed	Takeoff weight	MG	Summit height
Morane-Saulnier L	France France	80 hp	123 km / h	480 kg	1	4,700 m
Morane-Saulnier N.	France France	110 hp	165 km / h	510 kg	1	4,000 m
Vickers FB5 "Gunbus"	United Kingdom 1801 United Kingdom	100 hp	113 km / h	930 kg	2	2,743 m
Palatinate A.II	German Empire German Empire	100 hp	150 km / h	615 kg	0
Palatinate E.III	German Empire German Empire	110 hp	150 km / h	445 kg	1	4,000 m
Fokker EI	German Empire German Empire	80 hp	130 km / h	560 kg	1	3,000 m

End of use

Through a revision of the structure and further improvements, the Morane-Saulnier LA was finally created , but it remained only a transitional model. The pattern was only used sporadically in France, but several machines went to Russia and Great Britain.

From mid-1915, the Morane L were the type N replaced, which was inferior to the firepower of the German monoplane early 1916 followed by the two-seat Morane-Saulnier P .

On the German side, copies of the aircraft were made by the Pfalz-Flugzeugwerke . They were given the designations Pfalz AI , Pfalz A.II and the armed variant Pfalz E.III converted with MG into a single-seat fighter aircraft .

Technical specifications

Three-sided view of the Morane-Saulnier L

Parameter	Data
Morane-Saulnier L :
span	11.20 m
Length:	6.88 m
Height:	3.93 m
Wing area	18.30 m²
Empty weight	385 kg
Takeoff weight	655 kg
engine	9-cylinder rotary engine Gnome-Rhône with 59 kW (80 PS)
Armament	Hotchkiss or Lewis MG 7.7 mm (.303 inch)
Top speed	123 km / h
Ascent time to 1,000 m	5 min. 45 sec.
Service ceiling	4,000 m
Flight duration	2 hours
number of pieces	about 600
crew	1 pilot, 1 observer

photos

Captured by German troops, Morane-Saulnier L
The Russian Ensign Alelyuchin in front of a Morane-Saulnier L
Propeller with deflectors
Restored Finnish Thulin D (F.4)

literature

Enzo Angelucci, Paolo Matricardi: The planes. From the beginning to the First World War. Falken-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-8068-0391-9 , ( Falken manual in color. )
Karlheinz Kens, Hanns Müller: The aircraft of the First World War 1914–1918. Heyne, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-453-00404-3 .
Kenneth Munson: Warplanes. Fighter and training aircraft 1914–1919. 2nd revised edition. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-280-00824-7 , ( Airplanes of the World in Colors. ) Pp. 24, 121–122.
Heinz Nowarra: The Development of Airplanes 1914–1918. Lehmanns, Munich 1959.

Web links

Commons : Morane-Saulnier L - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Color profiles at Wings Palette - Avia Camouflage Profiles Archive (English)
Morane-Saulnier L at The Aerodrome (English)
Demonstration of the Morane-Saulnier L replica of a Belgian school project on YouTube
WWI Aircraft Profile Gallery: Morane-Saulnier at WWAviation - An illustrated history of World War One

Individual evidence

↑ Kenneth Munson: Fighter Planes. Fighter and training aircraft 1914–1919. 2nd revised edition. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-280-00824-7 , ( Airplanes of the World in Colors. ) P. 161.

↑ Description of the Morane Saulnier Type L at Avions legendaires - Encyclopédie de l'avitation militaire ligne depuis 1999 (French) - accessed on January 12, 2013.

↑ ^a ^b ^c Morane Saulnier LMS Parasol ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2013 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. on the website of Retired Aircraft of the Swiss Air Force , accessed on January 12, 2013. @1@ 2

↑ Thulin D "Parasol" (reconnaissance aircraft and trainer, 1915–1918) at www.avrosys.nu, accessed on January 13, 2013.

[1] Kenneth Munson: Fighter Planes. Fighter and training aircraft 1914–1919. 2nd revised edition. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-280-00824-7 , ( Airplanes of the World in Colors. ) P. 161.

[2] Description of the Morane Saulnier Type L at Avions legendaires - Encyclopédie de l'avitation militaire ligne depuis 1999 (French) - accessed on January 12, 2013.