Nieuport 24

Nieuport 24bis.
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Charles Nungesser in his Nieuport 24 bis.
Type	fighter / advanced trainer
Manufacturer	Nieuport / British Nieuport and General Aircraft Co.
Designed by	Gustave Delage
Maiden flight	1917
Primary users	Aéronautique Militaire Royal Flying Corps Royal Naval Air Service

The Nieuport 24 was a French biplane fighter aircraft during World War I designed by Gustave Delage as a replacement for the successful Nieuport 17.

Design and Development

The Nieuport 24 introduced a new fuselage of improved aerodynamic form, rounded wingtips, and a tail unit incorporating a small fixed fin and a curved rudder. The tailskid was sprung internally and had a neater appearance than that on earlier Nieuports. A 130 hp Le Rhône Rotary engine was fitted.

In the event, there were problems with the new tail, and most production aircraft of the type were of the 24bis. model, which retained the fuselage and wings of the 24, but reverted to the Nieuport 17 type tailplane, tailskid and rectangular balanced rudder. The new tail was finally standardised on the Nieuport 27.

A batch of Nieuport 24bis. were built in England for the RNAS.

The standard armament of the Nieuport 17 (a synchronised Vickers in French service - a Lewis gun on a Foster mounting on the top wing in British service) was retained to save weight and retain a good performance, although many 24s were used as advanced trainers and normally flown without guns.

Service history

In the summer of 1917, when the Nieuport 24 and 24bis. were coming off the production line, most French fighter squadrons were replacing their Nieuport 17s with SPADs – and many of the new fighters went to fighter training schools, and to France’s allies, including the Russians, and the British, who used theirs well into 1918, due to a shortage of S.E.5as. A few French units retained the Nieuport through late 1917 – the type was actually preferred by some pilots, especially the famous Charles Nungesser.

Some of the Nieuport advanced trainers bought by the Americans for their flying schools in France in November 1917 may very well have been 24s or 24bis.

Operators

• Template:FRA
• Template:UK
• Template:RUS / Template:USSR
• Template:USA

Specifications (Nieuport 24 bis.)

General characteristics

• Crew: One
• Length: 5.88 m (19 ft 3½ in)
• Wingspan: 8.18 m (26 ft 10 in)
• Height: 2.44 m (8 ft)
• Empty weight: 354 kg (782 lb)
• Loaded weight: 544 kg (1200 lb)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 187 km/h (116 mph)
• Service ceiling: 5,550 m (18,200 ft)
• Rate of climb: 22 min to 5000 m (16,400 ft)

Armament

• (French service) 1x synchronised Vickers machine gun
• (British service) 1x Lewis gun on Foster mounting on upper wing

Sources

• Nieuport Fighters in Action published by Squadron/Signal Publications
• Cheesman E.F. (ed.) Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War Letchworth, Harletford Publications, 1960 pp. 96-97

See also

Designation sequence
20 - 21 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 27 - 28

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nieuport 24".