Spark plugs to speed records

Édouard Nieuport began with electricity, not wings. In 1902 he and his brother Charles founded Nieuport-Duplex at Suresnes, making magnetos, spark plugs and batteries for motor cars; according to French Wikipedia, the Antoinette engine in the Voisin that Henri Farman flew round the first kilometre in 1907 used Nieuport-Duplex ignition. In 1909 Édouard turned to aircraft. His second design, flown before the end of the year, already had the essential form of a modern aeroplane: an enclosed fuselage and a tail that pushed down to balance the engine. On 11 May 1911 his tiny Nieuport II, with a 28 hp engine of his own, broke the world speed record.

Two brothers lost

Flying was deadly in those years. On 16 September 1911 Édouard was thrown from his aircraft when it stalled in a turn during a military display at Charny, and died. The patron of French aviation, Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, took over the company and financed a new factory at Issy-les-Moulineaux. On 24 January 1913 Charles Nieuport was also killed, after stalling and spinning in. The Swiss engineer Franz Schneider became chief designer until late 1913; then Gustave Delage, no relation of the car maker, took over in January 1914. Delage would run Nieuport’s design office for 18 years.

The Bébé ends the scourge

Delage’s first idea was a racer with a narrow lower wing — a sesquiplane. Built as the Nieuport 10, it went to war in 1915 and proved so nimble it was flown as a fighter. A smaller version, the Nieuport 11 Bébé, reached the front in January 1916 and outclassed the Fokker Eindecker in speed, climb and manoeuvrability; it was the primary aircraft that ended the Fokker scourge. The Nieuport 17 followed, flown by Guynemer, Nungesser, Albert Ball and Billy Bishop. By October 1918 the Issy works employed 4,200 people, and Nieuports were licence-built by Macchi in Italy, Dux in Russia and others in Britain.

Through the Arc de Triomphe

The United States joined the war without fighters of its own, and the first American pursuit squadrons went into action on the Nieuport 28. On 14 April 1918 Lieutenants Alan Winslow and Douglas Campbell of the 94th Aero Squadron each shot down a German aircraft over their own airfield, and Eddie Rickenbacker began his career on the type. After the war came a moment of pure theatre: on 8 August 1919, protesting that airmen had been made to march like infantry in the victory parade, Charles Godefroy flew a Nieuport fighter through the Arc de Triomphe. It was filmed.

Faster than 200 mph

Peace brought records. The streamlined Nieuport 29 and 31 had wooden monocoque fuselages and 300 hp Hispano-Suiza engines. Flown by Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, the 31 became the first aircraft to exceed 200 mph in level flight, and on 12 December 1920 a NiD 29V raised the world speed record to over 313 km/h. The NiD 29 served widely: France bought 250, Italy 175 and Belgium 108, and Nakajima in Japan built 608 as the Army Ko-4. The company absorbed the balloon maker Astra in 1921 and the seaplane builder Tellier, and became Nieuport-Delage.

Into Loire-Nieuport

Delage’s parasol NiD 42 family led to the NiD 62 series, which equipped the bulk of French fighter units into the late 1930s and still flew with second-line squadrons in 1940. Delage retired in 1932, and in July 1935 Nieuport merged with Loire Aviation to form Loire-Nieuport, which joined the nationalised SNCAO in January 1937. When Germany invaded in 1940, the company’s records were burnt to keep them from the Germans. The last Nieuport design, the LN.401 gull-winged dive bomber, fought in the Battle of France.

Fábricas

• Suresnes workshops · Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine — Original Nieuport-Duplex ignition works
• Issy-les-Moulineaux works · Issy-les-Moulineaux, Hauts-de-Seine — Main aircraft factory from 1911–1913; 4,200 staff in 1918
• Tellier marine division · Argenteuil and Île de la Jatte — Seaplane works acquired with Tellier in August 1918

Pessoas

• Édouard Nieuport · founder — 1875–1911; set world speed records in 1910–1911; killed at Charny, 16 September 1911
• Charles Nieuport · co-founder — Killed in a crash on 24 January 1913
• Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe · owner and patron — Took over the company after Édouard’s death; died 24 November 1919
• Gustave Delage · chief designer, 1914–1932 — Created the sesquiplane fighter line and the NiD 29 and NiD 62
• Joseph Sadi-Lecointe · test and record pilot — First to exceed 200 mph in level flight; 313 km/h record in 1920
• Charles Godefroy · pilot — Flew a Nieuport through the Arc de Triomphe on 8 August 1919

Recordes e pioneirismos

• World speed record in a Nieuport II, 11 May 1911
• Nieuport II won the 1911 Gordon Bennett Trophy with Charles Weymann
• Nieuport 31: first aircraft to exceed 200 mph in level flight
• NiD 29V: world speed record of over 313 km/h, 12 December 1920
• First fighter used operationally by an American squadron: Nieuport 28, 1918