D'Equevilly-Monjustin

   The strange machine designed by the Marquis d'Equevilly, a navy engineer, is one of the most famous of the early oddities of aviation. Whatever the Marquis' source of inspiration and regardless of whether his machine flew, it was, as he said himself, simple and cheap. Designed in 1907 at Equevilly north of Paris, it consisted of a 4-wheel frame on which sat 2 vertical oval hoops into which were set 5 pairs of half-wings and one full wing, all of flat airfoil section. A 10 hp Buchet drove through a chain at 500 rpm a 2-blade tractor propeller. Various modifications were made to it in the course of its short life, including the addition of a sixth wing across the top of the hoops.
   In June 1908 it was damaged in a fire at Carreau's garage where it was stored; it appeared again in November 1908 with narrower circular hoops and some 50 small wings arranged more or less horizontally inside. In this form it was tested at Issy at the end of November, when the wing frames were tilted back to give them all some positive angle of attack.

   (Width: 5m; wing area: (1st version): 25 sqm; length: 2 m, with the propeller removed; gross weight: 140 kg; 10 hp Buchet)