The Ongoing Mystery Aircraft Thread Part Deux.

**giruXX** · July 15th, 2022, 04:21

Nowadays, people associate the name of the company with inflatable vehicles

**pomme homme** · July 15th, 2022, 05:57

The only mention I can find of this aeroplane is a youtube video which describes it as the plywood and plastic Zodiac trainer built at Bendix Airport, New Jersey, in 1941.

Addendum: described in Aerofiles as the Zodiac Libra-Det of c.1940.

**giruXX** · July 15th, 2022, 06:46

That's a good find:

**pomme homme** · July 15th, 2022, 07:26

Thank you, Uli. Your 'inflatable vehicles' clue was the key to identifying this trainer.

Here's a rather atypical light aeroplane, if you consider who the designer was.

**pomme homme** · July 16th, 2022, 07:37

Now had it had a delta wing .....

**lefty** · July 16th, 2022, 23:39

The clue did it, Mike, thank you.

It's the Payen PA-47'Plein Air'. Something we have plenty of, thankfully. No heatwave in Fife !

**pomme homme** · July 16th, 2022, 23:56

Spot on, Mike

. Although, when one considers the designs that preceded and succeeded it, what inspired Roland Payen to build a Taylorcraft Plus C lookalike, in 1949, is beyond me.

When you've finished catering for your golfing aficionado house guests, we'll look forward to your next challenge.

**lefty** · July 17th, 2022, 22:19

Morning all. Here's a monoplane which won't keep you guessing for long..

Sorry for the delay, but I have been battling with new PC, Win 11, and to cap it all, installation of MSFS.

Also have new graphics program and scanning has become an issue......all very testing for these ageing grey cells !

**dan_pub** · July 18th, 2022, 01:08

Miles M-12 Mohawk ?

**lefty** · July 18th, 2022, 02:16

No Dan - she's not a Brit.

**cthornburg** · July 18th, 2022, 11:04

SABCA S.40E

Chris

**lefty** · July 18th, 2022, 13:43

That's the one, Chris. Over to you.

**cthornburg** · July 19th, 2022, 07:03

Close brother to one I've put on here before

Chris

**pomme homme** · July 19th, 2022, 08:14

Mraz M-2 Skaut?

**cthornburg** · July 19th, 2022, 09:54

That should be it I had it as Eagle M-2 scout

Over to you

Chris

**pomme homme** · July 20th, 2022, 00:48

Thank you, Chris. Now here's something designed for those who like their own company.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2nzjmv3]

**lefty** · July 20th, 2022, 05:04

Ah, Mike, this one might be the Fleury RF.10 'Vedette', perhaps ?

**pomme homme** · July 20th, 2022, 08:01

Yes, Mike, it is Robert Fleury's 1948 homebuilt avionette monoplace. So a large

for you together with the responsibility for tendering the next aeronautical brain teaser.

**lefty** · July 20th, 2022, 10:18

Thanks Mike.
Here's something of similar vintage, but with two seats, enclosed in a quaint cockpit resembling something from from an old-fashioned coachbuilder.... Wind-tunnels? Pah !!

**lefty** · July 21st, 2022, 02:24

Large manufacturer. Renault motor.

**pomme homme** · July 21st, 2022, 02:57

When you said, Mike, that this is 'something of a similar vintage', I took that as a reference to Robert Fleury's 1948 RF.10 and thus assumed that this machine dated from the post-WW2 period? I think that, in consequence, I have been on a wild goose chase because, now, I think this machine to be the sole Farman F-355 F-ALME - dating from 1931!

**lefty** · July 21st, 2022, 04:44

It's my own fault. Apart from the date error (all my own work), I ignored the golden rule - 'Enter the world of French Aviation at your peril'.

My source (L'Aviation Civile Francaise) has this pic with a story about F-ALME, the Farman 351 belonging to M Roger Savarit.

The same description is in 1000aircraftphotos, by Nico Braas.

A check on Aviafrance reveals the registration as 'Farman F-231 puis Farman F-351'.

I shall award your glass of a suitable digestif and pass the whole messy affair back to France and our resident expert to unravel .

**pomme homme** · July 21st, 2022, 05:48

Now what, Mike, did your fellow Scotsman, Sir Walter Scott, say? Oh yes:

'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!'

Clearly aviafrance deceived me by putting up of photograph of F-ALME and describing it as the sole Farman F-355 (q.v. https://www.aviafrance.com/farman-f-...rance-6447.htm). Thus I did not look further. Had I, instead, consulted the copy of Pascal Brugier's Registre France, which was sitting on my desk, I would have seen that F-ALME initially was a Farman F-231 and subsequently was a F-351. Thus having made an error of omission, I feel that I ought to resile from posting the next challenge and declare open house. However as lacunae rarely seem to benefit this thread, hopefully I will be forgiven for grasping the nettle and taking us away from France with this .....

And finally, what does the Farman F-355 look like? According to someone offering for sale on eBay, at an exhorbitant price, a wooden model of it, it is a high wing monoplane powered by a single Salmson radial engine. But this model carries the registration mark F-AJJB which, according to Pascal Brugier, is a Farman 192! The reality appears to be that the F-351 and the F-355 either were very similar or the same, judging by what appears to be a contemporary captioned photograph (q.v. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thr...ts.5969/page-3, post #84 - the source of which, unfortunately, is not given) of the F-355. Unfortunately the machine in that photograph does not have a registration mark evident.