Lecomte

   Early French aviation is studded with Lecomtes, and it is not always easy to keep them distinct. In 1911 a Lecomte was registered for the Concourse Militaire, but the firm exhibited only the model of a military aeroplane at the Paris Salon: it was described as having a monocoque fuselage, but in fact the slender frame was sheathed in plywood. It is not certain whether the full-scale aeroplane was ever built. But in a photograph taken at the Ateliers Aeronautiques de l'Est appears the fuselage of just such a wood-covered monoplane with nicely tapered rounded fuselage and high V-legged undercarriage with long skids forward.
   One Lecomte was Henri, the son of the colonel who commanded the 41st Territorial Regiment at Nancy, in the east of France. In 1911 the Lecomtes bought the building and tooling of the disbanded Avia company to establish the firm known as Ateliers Aeronautiques de l'Est (Eastern Aeronautical Workshops, or AAE).
   In 1912 Henri Lecomte moved to Varengeville, near Luneville near Nancy, where he also founded a flying school; by the end of the year he is reported to have built at least 3 monoplanes, one of which was a side-by-side 2-seater, and the other 2 were single-seaters; one of these, powered with a 3-cylinder Viale, resembled a Bleriot, with a curved cane tailskid so large as to keep the fuselage nearly horizontal on the ground. The main 2-wheel undercarriage was low, with a third wheel forward. The long triangular tailplane surface reached forward along the uncovered sides almost to the cockpit; 2 trapezoidal elevators were accompanied by a small trapezoidal rudder. What was possibly the third machine had a long covered diamond-section fuselage with a small angular rudder and large trapezoidal tail surfaces set slightly ahead; the wings were long and tapered, with scalloped edges and tips.
   On 8 January 1913 Henri Lecomte crashed on take-off; afterwards, nothing more was heard of the aeroplane, the man, or the company.
   Other Lecomtes were also in the news: one crashed Blinderman's monoplane, the Kassa Ery, at Nice; another fought during WWI in the Aviation Militaire and later went to the United States.

   (Span: 12.6 m; length: 8.6 m; wing area: 22 sqm; chord: 1.6 m; 25-30 hp 3-cylinder Viale)