The Ongoing Mystery Aircraft Thread Part Deux.

[Moses03]

Methinks & Co has unearthed the stylish Hirsch H-100.

[& Co.]

Yes indeed!

I expected the Nieuport to be an easy one and the Hirsh to be a stinker - all wrong.

for Moses03 !

[Moses03]

Thanks for the golden ale. I know what you mean about what seems hard and what seems easy to guess. Sometimes I pick one out thinking I got you all for sure and it lasts about 30 min.

Let me see what I can scare up for the next one. (I am at work on the office computer...shhhhh. Don't tell anyone).

[Moses03]

Let's heavy it up a little-

[lefty]

The man is definitely a Cold War Eastern Bloc spy.

This is a Shcherbakov Shch-2 of the Yugoslavian Air Force.

And Piglet, despite what you may read below, had nothing to do with this post whatever. (Annoying little gremlin, that.)

[Moses03]

Right on.

Over to you-

[lefty]

Thanks Kevin - needed that pint - have had a thirsty day trying to get a big piece of furniture into a small room via some tight corridors and stairs - getting too old for this sort of thing ! But it's there !

Here's one which shouldn't last too long.............

[Moses03]

No one has spoken up yet. Must be French...

[lefty]

Not French. &Co is pretty hot on those. Not American either.

[Moses03]

Ah, Italian then.

[lefty]

This could take a while, if we're going to eliminate the countries of the world one by one. It is not Italian.

It is European. Here it is again.

[lefty]

OK, time to draw a veil over the Darmstadt D.29

Something different, and much sexier.

[srgalahad]

OK.. I'm back ( albeit infrequently with any knowledge).
Moses, lefty, I'll try to help out after I land in Mexico in 49 days -Mazatlan, not 'Pulco tho' - IF I can find the library and IF my Spanish is up to it and IF they have any aviation or historical texts AND IF I don't find the Pacifico brewery first! Regardless, I'll think of you in the cold

Rob

[Hurricane]

and much sexier.

So it won't be French then? :costumes:

[& Co.]

I am not sure of the designation: it is a Nieuport Delage, referred to as "sesquiplan de chasse" derived from the sesquiplan racer. First flown in 1921.

There has been another NiD sesquiplan, the C12. It is not the current mystery.
Seems the people at Nieuport were having troubles finding names

Oh, before I forget it: interesting plane, that Darmstadt. I knew I had seen it somewhere, but couldn't remember where (I swear it's true)

[lefty]

Well, &Co gets a watered-down glass of marc here for a pretty half-baked answer.

It is French, James, (there's always a good-looking exception, like Juliette Binoche).

And it is a Nieuport (not Nieuport-Delage) It is a Nieuport 31, which according to my sources flew in 1918/19.

[& Co.]

Far from me the intention to discuss your comment, Lefty, but I don't know which is which anymore.

Here is a Nieuport given as Nieuport 31 :

Some sources also give it as Nieuport Delage NiD 42S

Your mystery is here, under another angle. The source says it is derived from Georges Kirsch's Nieuport Delage Sesquiplan which won the 1921 Deutsch Cup. So whose sources are (the most) reliable - if any ?

[& Co.]

Meanwhile, and since source mysteries are off topic, let's proceed with on topic ones :

[lefty]

Au contraire, mon ami, we have some very lively debates and differences of opinion here, which is partly what this forum is all about ! Pooling our resources is very useful indeed, and we find lots of anomalies.
I know the site you have used - my info came from Davilla & Soltan's very substantial tome 'French Aircraft of the First World War.' (There is even a 3-view)
Aviafrance has no pic, but mentions the 31 as having the Rhone engine, whereas the later Sesquiplans had inline jobs, and the pics are similar to your one.
However, maybe some of our other regulars can give us some input on this one.

[lefty]

In the meantime, your mystery is a Bordelaise (S.A.B.) 80.

[& Co.]

57 minutes !

A SAB DB80 it is indeed. to Lefty (where on earth does that Frosty come from ?).

[& Co.]

Thanks indeed for your answer re. the Nieuport.
I didn't check Aviafrance for this one (the "31" pic I provided is given as such by Wikipedia - which I moderately trust), but I assume, until further notice and unless opposite evidence, that Davilla & Soltan are more reliable than Gérard Hartmann (that's where the "sesquiplan de chasse" comes from, and the one who gives the "31" as a NiD 42S... Aw bloimey :d)

[lefty]

I wonder if the Crowwood Nieuport book mentions this one ?
Even Jane's gets it wrong sometimes, see my post about the Severskys.

Anyway, here's something a bit more modern, another very neat design which didn't make it.

[Moses03]

Burns Ba-42?

[Hurricane]

Au contraire, mon ami, we have some very lively debates and differences of opinion here, which is partly what this forum is all about ! Pooling our resources is very useful indeed, and we find lots of anomalies.

I find its great for building up some resources, I'm slowly building up a collection of books which covers the more obscure stuff (I've got all the mainstream stuff fairly well covered now) but without this forum I'd never have heard of most of these and would never have any reference material on them.

This latest one looks like a Piper Navajo's offspring!