J.Davilla, A.Soltan French Aircraft of the First World War (Flying Machines)

Bleriot 67

  Many companies responded to the request for a well-protected strategic bomber capable of raiding German cities. Along with seven other manufactures, Bleriot entered such an aircraft in the 1916 concours puissant.
  The competition emphasized that the aircraft should not only have adequate range and bomb load, but it also had to be able to defend itself against enemy fighters. It had been discovered in 1915 that the Caudron, Farman, and Voisin bombers carried inadequate defensive armament and were suffering heavy losses to German fighters.
  Louis Bleriot had been interested in producing a heavy bomber for the concours puissant and in February 1916 had created three designs for such a machine, two were quadraplanes, the third was a biplane. All featured two engines above the fuselage and two below. They were closely grouped near the centerline where, should an engine fail, the effects of asymmetric thrust would be less pronounced. None of these projects advanced beyond the drawing board, but the unique engine arrangement was used in Bleriot's next heavy bomber, the type 67.
  The Bleriot 67 was designed with the aid of an engineer named Touillet. In addition to being heavily armed with machine guns fore and aft, the Type 67 had to fill the other requirements, including a range of 600 km and a speed of 140 km/h at 2,000 meters. The narrow fuselage was positioned between the two wings. The engines were closely grouped around the centerline, with one each on the port upper, starboard upper, port lower, and starboard lower wings. Unfortunately, the large number of struts and wires needed to brace the fuselage and wings created excessive drag, and this eroded the aircraft's performance. The engines were four Gnome 9Bs of 100-hp. The undercarriage consisted of two pairs of wheels located beneath each of the lower engines. There was a biplane tail with three fins and rudders. A crew of three was carried.
  Like most of the other entries, the Bleriot 67 was unable to meet the specifications of the competition and no production orders were placed. Only one was built, and it crashed in September 1916 while undergoing flight testing at Buc.


Bleriot 67 Heavy Bomber with Four 100-hp Gnome 9B Engines
   Wing span 19.40 m; length 11.80 m; wing area 89 sq m
   Empty weight 1,800 kg; loaded weight 3.500 kg
   One built



Bleriot 71

  The failure of the Bleriot 67 to fulfill the requirements of the 1916 contours forced Bleriot to redesign his strategic bomber. The resulting aircraft was intended to meet the BN 3 specification for a heavy bomber. It also was designed by engineer Touillet. Initially, it was intended to place the fuselage on the lower wing, but at some point before construction the type was redesigned so that the fuselage was suspended between the upper and lower wings. The craft was similar to the Bleriot 67, but much larger and powered by four 220-hp Hispano-Suiza 8B engines generating considerably more power. It featured a similar tail with a biplane stabilizer. The original design had three sets of rudders but this was changed to two sets. Only one aircraft was built. The Bleriot 71 was damaged on 15 May 1918 at Villacoublay when a Breguet 14 B1 sustained an engine failure and while landing dead stick, caused the Bleriot 71 to crash into a ditch in the center of the airfield. The fuselage was fractured. It appears that the plane was not rebuilt, probably because it had not been selected by the Aviation Militaire for series production. The Farman F.50 and Caudron C.23 were instead chosen for the BN 3 specification.


Bleriot 71 Heavy Bomber with Four 220-hp Hispano-Suiza 8B Engines
   Wing span 26.30; length 14 m; height 6 m; wing area 140 sq. m
   Empty weight 3,200 kg; gross weight 6,530 kg
   Maximum speed at ground level: 140 km/h
   Endurance 6 hours 40 minutes
   One built