A family firm

Engineers Jean Leseurre and his brother-in-law Charles Gourdou set up Établissements Gourdou-Leseurre at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, south-east of Paris, in 1921. At first the factory assembled military aircraft under licence, such as the Breguet 14, before the partners became designers in their own right. Their GL.30 racer of 1920 flew the 1923 Coupe Beaumont course at 360 km/h and became the basis of a family of parasol-wing fighters. Like most of their earlier aircraft it had a parasol wing, but with a trapezoidal planform and retractable undercarriage.

The parasol fighter

Between 1925 and 1928 the firm belonged to the Loire shipyard, so its aircraft carried the LGL prefix. The LGL.32 came second in a military fighter trial, yet impressed enough to win orders: 475 for the Aéronautique Militaire, 15 for the Navy, 50 for Romania and 12 for Turkey. Later versions were adapted as carrier dive bombers. The carrier versions had a fork under the fuselage to swing a 50 kg bomb clear of the propeller. Attrition was heavy, and the type was not long-lived.

Floatplanes, then a quarrel

The company also built catapult floatplanes for French warships: the GL-810 HY family, 86 of them, served aboard the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste and on cruisers, and some flew anti-submarine patrols in 1939. By then the firm had gone. In the 1930s Gourdou and Leseurre fell out badly, and the company ended in 1934. The floatplanes descended from the L-2 prototype of 1926 and 1927, which was flown to Copenhagen and demonstrated to several countries.

Továrny

• Saint-Maur works · Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne — Company factory from 1921

Lidé

• Charles Gourdou · co-founder, designer — Brother-in-law of Jean Leseurre
• Jean Leseurre · co-founder, designer — Co-founded the firm in 1921

Rekordy a prvenství

• GL.30 averaged 360 km/h over the Coupe Beaumont course, 1923