Book Review: French Aircrat of the 1st World War

[Bullethead 12]

Book Review

French Aircraft of the First World War

by Dr. James J. Davilla and Arthur M. Soltan

ISBN 1-891268-09-0

Flying Machine Press, 1997, 2002

 

FMP wants a LOT of money for this, but you can find it MUCH cheaper if you look around.

 

Overview

Has entries of more or less detail (often a lot) on just about every airplane built in France from just before until just after WW1. Most planes have performance stats, numbers built, dates in service and with which units, photos, and detailed 3-view drawings. This includes not only production machines but also just about every 1-off prototype. Also a large section of color profiles and 3-views showing camo patterns, including different patterns on same plane when built by different companies.

 

In addition, the book has a fair amount of organizational and operational data on both the Aviation Militaire and Aviation Maritime. This helps make sense of a lot of stuff and paints an impressive picture of the French air services in WW1.

 

Good Stuff

All of the above.

 

Bad Stuff

Suffers from spotty editing. There are numerous instances of incomplete sentences, double words, etc., and occasionally missing paragraphs that cut off in the middle of sentences. There is also an annoying amount of redunancy in the text, like the same things being said in different words in consecutive paragraphs. But this is just a minor quibble in what is otherwise and excellent and very informative book.

 

Stuff I Never Knew

This book is full of new info for me. I knew very little about French aviation other than that they made SPADs, Nupes, and such things. The book claims that this is pretty universal because nobody's really done much on the subject before. The primary reason for this is that many French records were destroyed in 1940, so it's been hard to make the data, not only on airplanes but also on the operational and organizational stuff. Hence, the authors decided to include an overview of these latter subjects while they were at it.

 

Here are a few things I didn't know before:

 

1. That an airplane called the A.R.1 existed. This was like the French RE8, used in vast quantities as their main recon and arty spotter. And like the RE8, it wasn't well-loved, especially by 1918. And it was an unusual design, with the fuselage between the wings like a Brisfit, but with significant back-stagger.

 

2. That because of the slow arrival of the A.R.1, the French 2-seater squadrons were stuck with Farman pushers (Fee analogs) and Caudrons (Quirk analogs) rather later into 1917 than the RFC, even into early 1918. AND, they started building Strutters under license about the time the RFC and RNAS were abandoning the type. However, by 1918, the Salmsons and Breguet were appearing in large numbers, replacing all these obsolete types.

 

3. That French squadrons numbered 1-99 were MOSTLY "army cooperation" (although some were bombers), 100-199 were mostly dedicated bombers (although some were army cooperation), and 200-299 were dedicated arty spotters. Squadrons with numbers in the 300 and 500 series were mostly assigned to overseas fronts. Note that the "army cooperation" category includes fighter squadrons as well as 2-seaters.

 

4. That most French 2-seater squadrons had a few twin-engined 3-seaters on strength for long-range recon and escorting the 2-seaters.

 

5. That dedicated 3-seater escort squadrons existed that were paired with specific 2-seater bomber and recon squadrons, so always did joint missions.

 

6. That there was a Morone-salnier parasol fighter that equipped several squadrons in 1918, although for only a month or 2 before being replaced by SPADs.

 

Anyway, I found the book quite fascinating. There were an amazing number of highly imaginative prototypes, some of quite futuristic design. For example, there were several attempts to make a pusher fighter with the prop behind the tail and a sleek, enclosed fuselage enclosing the engine. And there were also quite a few candidates for the Museum of Diseased Imaginings. My favorite was a helicopter with a 1-bladed rotor pushed around by compressed air jets. The engine and compressor counterbalanced the single blade and rotated with it. Control was by a moveable pipe blowing air out in the needed direction.

[Hasse Wind 46]

 

Here are a few things I didn't know before:

 

1. That an airplane called the A.R.1 existed. This was like the French RE8, used in vast quantities as their main recon and arty spotter. And like the RE8, it wasn't well-loved, especially by 1918. And it was an unusual design, with the fuselage between the wings like a Brisfit, but with significant back-stagger.

 

 

Did you ever try the RB3D mods? It was definitely included in them, Hell's Angels for example. I remember shooting down quite a few of those miserable 2-seaters (and even more Caudron G4's!).

 

Thanks for the review. I've known about this book for some time, but its terrible price has prevented me from getting it. And I own quite a few WW1 aviation books, so I was wondering whether this one had anything to add to them. It seems it has.

[Bullethead 12]

Did you ever try the RB3D mods? It was definitely included in them, Hell's Angels for example. I remember shooting down quite a few of those miserable 2-seaters (and even more Caudron G4's!).

 

It's been so long, I can't remember what all mods for RB2/3D I did, apart from FCJ because I'm looking at the CD for that right now. But I sure don't remember the A.R.1 from any of them.

 

One of the interesting things about this kite is that despite the number in service, the thing was obscure even in its own day. Nobody seems to have been quite sure what "A.R." stood for. It wasn't the designer's initials because it was designed by the air force. Renault claimed the "R" was for the Renault engine, and even tried to insist that all planes with Renault engines should have an "R" in the name, but A.R.1s had several types of motors. Some thought it meant Avion Reconaissance, but this apparently wasn't the case, either. When the 1st US 2-seater squadrons got 2nd-hand A.R.1s, they thought it stood for "Antiquated Rattletrap".