De Marçay 4

Last updated
de Marçay 4
RoleSingle seat fighter
National origin France
ManufacturerSAECA Edmund de Marçay
DesignerBotali and Georges Lebeau
First flight1923
Number built1 or 2

The de Marçay 4 was a single seat monoplane fighter built in France in 1923 for a government competition. It did not receive a production contract.

Monoplane Fixed-wing aircraft with a single main wing plane

A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with a single main wing plane, in contrast to a biplane or other multiplane, each of which has multiple planes.

France Republic with mainland in Europe and numerous oversea territories

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

Contents

Design and development

The de Marçay 4 was designed to compete for a contract under the 1921 French government 1921 C.1 (single seat fighter) programme. It was a wooden shoulder wing monoplane with a low aspect ratio, thick section wing. This was built around two spars and was braced from below on each side by an N-form strut from the spars, at 60% span, to the lower fuselage; its midsection was on top of the fuselage. There was no dihedral. [1]

Aspect ratio (aeronautics) ratio of an aircrafts wing span to its mean chord

In aeronautics, the aspect ratio of a wing is the ratio of its span to its mean chord. It is equal to the square of the wingspan divided by the wing area. Thus, a long, narrow wing has a high aspect ratio, whereas a short, wide wing has a low aspect ratio.

Airfoil

An airfoil or aerofoil is the cross-sectional shape of a wing, blade, or sail.

Strut structural component designed to resist longitudinal compression

A strut is a structural component commonly found in engineering, aeronautics, architecture and anatomy. Struts generally work by resisting longitudinal compression, but they may also serve in tension.

The fighter was powered by a 220 kW (300 hp) Hispano-Suiza 8Fb water-cooled V-8 engine. Its radiator was centrally mounted under the engine, oriented edge on. A pair of fixed and synchronized 7.7 mm (0.303 in) Vickers machine guns fired through the propeller disc. The fuselage was flat sided, though with curved upper decking. Its open cockpit placed the pilot in a cut-out in the trailing edge at about wing level, with a small head-rest fairing behind him. At the rear the empennage was conventional, with a straight tapered horizontal tail including split elevators placed on top of the fuselage. The fin was triangular and the rudder rounded, extending down to the keel. None of the control surfaces were aerodynamically balanced. [1]

Radiator (engine cooling) heat-exchanging component of liquid cooled engines

Radiators are heat exchangers used for cooling internal combustion engines, mainly in automobiles but also in piston-engined aircraft, railway locomotives, motorcycles, stationary generating plant or any similar use of such an engine.

Propeller (aeronautics) aircraft component which converts engine torque into forward thrust

An aircraft propeller, or airscrew, converts rotary motion from an engine or other power source, into a swirling slipstream which pushes the propeller forwards or backwards. It comprises a rotating power-driven hub, to which are attached several radial airfoil-section blades such that the whole assembly rotates about a longitudinal axis. The blade pitch may be fixed, manually variable to a few set positions, or of the automatically-variable "constant-speed" type.

Cockpit area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft

A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft.

The de Marçay 4 had a conventional fixed tailskid undercarriage, with mainwheels on a single axle mounted on a pair of V-form struts from the lower fuselage. [1]

Landing gear aircraft part which supports the aircraft while not in the air

Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft and may be used for either takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally both. It was also formerly called alighting gear by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin Company.

The fighter was built in five months and first flew in 1923. [1] At the programme trials it was criticised for its pilot's poor forward and downward fields of view and no production order was received. [1]

Specifications

Data from Green & Swanborough (1994) [1]

General characteristics

V8 engine piston engine with eight cylinders in vee configuration

A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder V configuration engine with the cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two sets of four, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft. Most banks are set at a right angle (90°) to each other, some at a narrower angle, with 45°, 60°, and 72° most common.

Performance

  • Maximum speed: 279 km/h (173 mph; 151 kn) at sea level

Armament

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Green, William; Swanborough, Gordon (1994). The Complete Book of Fighters. Godalming, UK: Salamander Books. p. 174. ISBN   1-85833-777-1.


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