Couzinet
A brilliant, doomed young engineer whose sleek three-engined Arc-en-Ciel carried Jean Mermoz across the South Atlantic, yet whose company never sold enough aircraft to survive.
Couzinet: the company and the aircraft that made its name
The rainbow tri-motor
René Couzinet, a schoolteacher’s son from the Vendée, was filing aviation patents while still a student at the Angers school of arts and crafts; he eventually held 91. As a young air force officer on duty at Le Bourget on 21 May 1927, he helped rescue Charles Lindbergh from the crowd. That year he began building the Couzinet 10 Arc-en-Ciel, or Rainbow: a wooden three-engined monoplane with a thick wing and a sharply tapered fin, conceived for the Atlantic. Hispano-Suiza lent the engines free of charge. It first flew from Orly on 7 May 1928.
Mermoz and the South Atlantic
Disaster dogged the early years. Re-engined as the Couzinet 11, the first Arc-en-Ciel crashed on 8 August 1928, killing mechanic Georges Lanet and pilot Maurice Drouhin. In February 1930 a fire at Meudon destroyed the second aircraft and all its drawings; engineer Georges Le Moy redrew the plans from memory. The result, the Couzinet 70 Arc-en-Ciel III, first flew on 11 February 1932, and on 16 January 1933 Jean Mermoz flew it from Senegal to Natal in Brazil, with Couzinet aboard. Fifteen thousand people greeted its return to Le Bourget. Meanwhile the four-seat Couzinet 33 Biarritz had made the first flight from France to New Caledonia in 1932.
Good aircraft, no buyers
Officialdom never warmed to Couzinet. Marcel Dassault is quoted as saying that he made good aircraft but did not know how to sell them. State orders for Air France were cancelled, and by 1933 the firm was near bankruptcy and its design office was folded into Breguet. Couzinet worked in Brazil during the war and came home to closed doors; his flying-saucer RC-360 never left the model stage. On 16 December 1956 he shot his wife Gilberte, widow of Mermoz, and then himself.
Couzinet in numbers
החברה
- בקיצור
- Founded by René Couzinet
- First aircraft built in 1927–1928
- Prototype built with ANF Les Mureaux
- Design office absorbed by Breguet after 1933
הֲפָקָה
- ידוע בעיקר בזכות
- Arc-en-Ciel tri-motors
- Couzinet 10/11, 70/71 Arc-en-Ciel, 33 Biarritz
- Few aircraft, all prototypes or one-offs
הַיוֹם
- עַכשָׁיו
- נִפטָר
- René Couzinet died in 1956
La Roche-sur-Yon aerodrome bears his name.
המספרים
- Patents held by René Couzinet
- 91
- France to New Caledonia flight, Couzinet 33
- 24,000 km in 134 h 45 min flying1932
- Commercial South Atlantic crossings by the Couzinet 70/71
- 8
- Saint-Louis to Natal crossing time
- 14 h 32 min for 3,173 km (French Wikipedia); under 12 h (English Wikipedia)1933
Every notable Couzinet aircraft
| כְּלִי טַיִס | תַפְקִיד | טיסה ראשונה | בנוי | סטָטוּס | פֶּתֶק |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Couzinet 10 / 11 Arc-en-Ciel No. 1 | Long-range tri-motor prototype | 1928 | 1 | בְּדִימוּס | Crashed 8 August 1928 after re-engining |
| Couzinet 27 | Four-seat tourer | 1928 | בְּדִימוּס | Destroyed in the 1930 Meudon fire | |
| Couzinet 33 Biarritz | Four-seat long-range tourer | 1931 | בְּדִימוּס | First air link France to New Caledonia, 1932; crashed 1933 | |
| Couzinet 70 / 71 Arc-en-Ciel III | Transatlantic mailplane | 1932 | 1 | בְּדִימוּס | Mermoz’s 1933 South Atlantic crossing; later flown by Air France |
| Couzinet RC-360 Aérodyne | VTOL flying-saucer project | בְּדִימוּס | Models only, 1950s |
Where Couzinet built, who led it, what it achieved
מפעלים
- Meudon workshops · Meudon — Lent by Émile-Louis Letord; destroyed by fire in February 1930
- Île de la Jatte workshops · Neuilly / Levallois, near Paris — Destroyed in the war; permission to rebuild refused
אֲנָשִׁים
- René Couzinet · founder and designer (1904–1956)
- Georges Le Moy · engineer — Redrew the Arc-en-Ciel plans from memory after the 1930 fire
- Jean Mermoz · pilot — Flew the Arc-en-Ciel across the South Atlantic, 1933
שיאים וראשונות
- First air link from France to New Caledonia, Couzinet 33 Biarritz, March–April 1932
Couzinet, year by year
Construction of the Couzinet 10 Arc-en-Ciel begins
Arc-en-Ciel No. 1 first flight from Orly
Couzinet 11 crashes in testing; two killed
Fire at Meudon destroys aircraft and archives
Couzinet 70 Arc-en-Ciel III first flight
Couzinet 33 Biarritz reaches Nouméa
Mermoz and Couzinet cross the South Atlantic
Near bankruptcy; design office joins Breguet
Death of René Couzinet
Before and after Couzinet
Everything people ask about Couzinet
What was the Couzinet Arc-en-Ciel?
Why did Couzinet fail commercially?
What was the Couzinet RC-360?
Was Couzinet related to Mermoz?
Around Couzinet
כל עובדה, נבדקה
אומת בתאריך 2026-10-03.