Breguet's ID Challenge #524

[Varese2002]

Breguet's ID Challenge #524

Have a good look at this one. Full point for the complete identification.

Cheers

Kees



The scoreboard at the start of #524 is:

96.50 Varese2002 ☼
68.40 Dave_Kent ☼
56.90 Rbailey ☼
31.30 Cruze ☼
17.50 YavorD
16.65 Froggy
15.30 Aquilius
13.30 Rod Filan
12.60 Flamingo
11.90 richard B
09.50 matte_kudasai
08.10 Breguet
07.70 Dan-San
07.70 EdStevens
07.60 trp81
07.40 JohnMacG
07.30 Patrick
07.10 Colin A. Owers
06.70 Ampovandak
06.10 joegertler
06.00 Eric Goedkoop
05.60 ercoupepilot
05.50 FOKKERJ Feuchtwanger
05.45 GregE
05.30 Crimso
05.30 Der Grüne Flieger
05.20 Doc
05.20 Gilles
05.10 bshatzer
05.00 Tom L........................ 12hours waiting
04.70 dpolglaze.................... No waiting
04.40 Ross Moorhouse
04.30 edmondthieffry
04.00 greenknight
03.70 AROTH
03.70 Berman
02.50 Gregoire
02.10 Crankcase
02.00 Rickenbaron
02.00 sobrien01.70 Kilian
01.60 sergio_vitalio
01.30 Cigogne
01.20 Ransom E. Olds
01.00 airplane176
01.00 Albatros_Ace
01.00 austin08
01.00 Brad
01.00 Cliff
01.00 cubsfan4life
01.00 gregorydquist
01.00 Luf-Rick
01.00 Mike Westorp
01.00 paolomiana
01.00 Peter Zambori
01.00 rammjaeger
01.00 Rexee
01.00 SL DIII
00.80 Machinbird
00.80 tbstreet
00.80 toxisch
00.60 Sreiko
00.50 Martin Irvine
00.40 Vilkata
00.30 albapfalzd30
00.30 Miroslav Pokorny
00.30 Nieuport14
00.20 Paul_J._Fisher


Previous challenges: * Breguet's Aircraft Challenge*

The rules :

•The thread title must be "Bréguet's aircraft ID challenge #......"
•The score board, link and rules must be copied to the beginning and end of each thread so that we know where we are.
•The completed aircraft must have been either; designed, built or have left the ground during the '14-'18 period and be identifiable by the poster.
•The photo must show the whole aircraft - from whatever angle, or at least 2 views of a 3 view drawing (photo by preference).
•Challenges which depict a machine already earlier presented are disqualified
(always check the list at earlyaviator.com/br.challenge when in doubt !)
•If there is any doubt as to the eligibility of an aircraft for the challenge details should be PM'd to Breguet BEFORE the aircraft is submitted.
•Once someone has got 5 correct answers under their belt they become an ACE. Once they become an ACE they must wait 12hrs after the posting of the new challenge before they can post an answer.
•To be eligible for correct ID an answer must include at least one characteristic of the aircraft that helped in its identification.
•The first person to ID the challenge correctly gets to post the next challenge. If this can not be done for any reason Breguet himself will post the next challenge.
•If an ace gives the correct answer too early, the challenge is over, he gets no point but has to post the next one. In lieu of the fact that the "novices" have in effect been "cheated" of their "exclusive" time that next post should be a relatively easy one. Anyone repeating the correct answer at the right time gets neither a point nor the right to post the next challenge.
•The final arbitor in relation to questions about the rules will be Breguet.

[SCMc]

Excellent photo Kees. Thank you for posting it. I had never seen the ambulance version before.

Steve

[Catfish]

Hello,
i hope there is no time limit for me ..
I say it is a Bréguet Bre. 14 (or Br. XIV), from the fuselage cooling openings for the engine, and the form of the rudder (and the general Bréguet appearance).

Edit: The plane was built until the 1930ies, and had a 300 hp Renault engine. This was one fine machine, and very advanced for the time.
The cowling is typical, with its louvers, and vertical front radiator. The plane on the photo would be (if it is not from a later photo), the ambulance version, as mentioned before by Scmc, the Br 14 S type (for sanitaire?), from 1917 or so i think.

From the books i read i am sure Antoine de Saint-Exupéry must have flown a Br 14 at some time in North Africa, if not the S version (?)

Greetings,
Catfish

[Doc]

Darn!! one I knew, and someone beat me to it. Definitely a Breguet XIV. This is the so-called Chassaing conversion version which held two superposed litters in the fuselage (may have been called an S version, but not so-called originally). It is NOT the later XIV-Tbis which was used heavily in the 20s and 30s for air evac in North Africa (see attached). These aircraft were not deployed during WWI, and were first deployed to Morocco (I think as a squdron of 6, but away from my references at the moment) during the Riff War.

Doc

[Doc]

Checking my books, this was actually called the Breguet XIVA2. It was a conversion, and was not actually called the "S" version until the aircraft were actually being constructed for ambulance use, rather than converted. These were apparently first used operationally in 1921 in Morocco and Syria. The XIV "S" versions were actually built on the XIVTbis airframe (not the A2 airframe of this one) and were used by Sweden and Uruguay. Doc

[Froggy]

Bonsoir

I think that Doc is right and that it is a Breguet A2 reconcerted in Ambulance
duty-Considering the serial number N°7259, it should be a Shmitt built A2
wit order command in February 1919, so after end War
(Source Alan Toelle -Breguet 14- WDF special)


Cordialement
Bruno

[Catfish]

Hello,
it may certainly be that Kees' picture does not show an "original-built" ambulance, but a converted 14 ?
For what i have read the Bréguet 14 T bis ambulance was indeed a later variation used from 1920 on, the Bréguet 14 A.2 sported a camera or bombing racks made by Michelin. The only war plane ambulance from Bréguet i know of was from 1917, and (maybe later after the war?) called the "S".
(Breguet 14 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Only after the war the plane's designation was then written as "XIV", with roman numbers.

But i certainly may be wrong, however how does the so called S differ from the A.2 ? I thought the A.2 was an armed version which " ... had a single fixed 7.7mm Vickers machine-gun on the left side of the fuselage, and twin Lewis guns in the observer's cockpit ..."

Greetings,
Catfish

[FOKKERJ]

This machine does look like the A.2, I don't see the transparent windows of the B.2. I can't see the difference between the A.2 and the B.2 on the lower wing (the B.2 has the full length aileron on the lower wing.). It looks like an early Br.14S which was used in modest numbers during 1918.
It doesn't have the clean modifications that you would expect on the latter ambulance version.

HAPPY TRAILS, FOKKERJ

It could be the B.2 crudely modified to an Br.14S.

[Doc]

Catfish, none of my references say anything about the existence of a Breguet XIV ambulance in 1917- The first French Air Ambulance was the Chassaing conversion of the Dorand AR-2 in October/November 1917. I have to believe Wikipedia is wrong on this one. The "S" was definitely built on a XIVTbis airframe, not the A2-- I am pretty well convinced this is a converted A2 and not an "S". The A2 was used for lots of things, including bombing and photography-- not all were armed with guns.

FokkerJ, if you have any documentation on Breguet XIV ambulances actually in use in 1918, I'd love to see it. Could you give me some reliable references? Having studied air ambulances for nearly 25 years, I have not seen documented use of these conversions that early. I don't think this photo can be a B2 converted to an S, as the S's were built on XIVTbis airframes.

Thanks for an interesting challenge. Doc

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Froggy

Bonsoir

I think that Doc is right and that it is a Breguet A2 reconcerted in Ambulance
duty-Considering the serial number N°7259, it should be a Shmitt built A2
wit order command in February 1919, so after end War
(Source Alan Toelle -Breguet 14- WDF special)

Cordialement
Bruno

I liked the great response on this Challenge

Checking the work of Alan Toelle this N°7259 is a Breguet Bre 14A2 built by the Ateliers de Constructions Mécaniques & Aéronautiques Paul Schmitt., manufactured in February 1919. Interestingly with hindsight the type of letters on this example built by Schmitt match the letters given by Alan Toelle which are specific for the different firms in the case of the Breguet Bre 14A2.
The the designation is given as Bre 14A2, not Bre XIVA2.
This machine was later modified as an ambulance plane which could carry two persons on stretchers [two-tier system].

The French way of a flying hospital is described at length in an authorotative article by D.M. Lam which appeared in 2005. After the experiments with a heavily modified Voisin pusher it was decided by the French to use

......more modern, and more logistically supportable Breguet XIV airframe, which, in reference to the pace-setting trials of 1919, were also called “Aerochirs” (6). Based on a requirements study carried out on behalf of the Minister of the Colonies in September 1919, these new models were first demonstrated publicly in 1921, and a squadron of six of them was sent to the Colonies soon thereafter, where they served valiantly throughout the colonial wars of the 1920s (18).

(Source)
Lam, D.M. The Aerochir: the first “flying hospital.” Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine Vol.76 (2005) 12 (december) pp. 1174 –9.

In the next posting I will come back on the administrative part, the points.

Cheers

Kees