Antoine de Saint-Exupéry civil planes

[Vesa Jussila]

Hi,

My idea is build four St.Exupery's planes. First is Breguet 14. My understanding is that he was flying these machines in his early career as a post pilot. Main questions in this plane are:

• Was it standard Brequet 14, or was there some modifications for postal service?
• Is AZ kit good starting point for this?
• Was there specific aeroplane that he was using? I assume that no and he was using any machine available.
• Any pictures planes he was using in aeropostale will be interesting

Second civil model will be Caudron Simoun, that he was using during Paris to Saigon atemp.

• Where there extra fuel tank installed?
• Any known modifications?
• Was plane used F-ANRY?
• Any pictures from this plane as well would be good.

TIA

Vesa

[CarLos]

Hi Vesa

About the Bréguet:

Aeropostale flew a lot of different aircraft. From almost factory 2A2 aircraft to several different limousines. I would say that the most simpler conversion would be a AZ Models "A" version without the gun ring and with luggage pods under the wings. St. Ex certailly flew a lot of different Br. 14's, may be it's better to concentrate of one from a photo.

I have lots of info about Sait Exupery and Aéropostale, but it is disperse and scans may take some time. I'll try to do it soon.

Will you make a Laté 28?

Carlos

[Vesa Jussila]

Thanks for comments Carlos,

My idea for first four planes will be Breguet 14, Caudron Simoun, Bloch 174 and Lightning F5. And use book covers as a display stand. Breguet will get Sothern Mail, Caudron Little prince, Bloch Flight to Arras and Lightning will get Wisdom of the sands.

When those are ready I will take a look for Late 28.

-Vesa

[President Trff]

Hi Vesa,

I have just completed a model F-ANRY, using the Heller kit mainly OOB using the excellent Model-Art Decals, sheet 72/053. I will put some pics up when I work out how to. For refernces I used the website of the excellent Musée d’l Air et de L’Éspace http://aama.museeairespace.fr/pegase/les-carnets-de-laama/le-caudron-simoun.html and also a book I picked up at the Nationals a couple of years ago published by Avia Editions Document Air No 5 Caudron Renault C-635 Simoun by Édouard Mihaly which is still available http://www.aerostories.org/~aerobiblio/article1456.html

Interestingly there are very few pictures of F-ANRY either on the net or in the book and the book says the colours used in it's scheme are unconfirmed. My good friend Jean-Pierre Desprez of ModelArt Decals recommends Gloss Ivory FS13690 and Gloss Burgundy FS11136 and who am I to go against that. I must ask him when I see him at Telford this year where he got that info.

With regards to extra tanks there is no evidence in any of the photos of an additional tank. Whereas the F-ANXM used by Marcel Doret for his record breaking flights clearly has a massive tank or tanks right behind the pilot seat which apears to take up the whole passenger space.

Hope this helps a bit

Best Regards

John

My next Simoun will be The one profiled on the cover of Mihaly's book, which is about as colourful as they come.

[JOAN]

Here is an interresting Simoun tribute :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l_i9L-DkC4M#t=21

Don't know about the tank but in the Maryse Bastié's Simoun, a big metal tank was installed in place of the rear seats...Then the only way to get in was the forward lateral windows.

I think this is the only way to have extra fuel tanks on this plane. The center of gravity was quite subtle in the Caudron serie.....

in this photo you can see the fuel tank behind St Ex. :

Follow on Faceface here the rebirth : https://www.facebook.com/RenaissanceCaudronSimoun

Still looking for a Laté 28...( saw the CMR in "coming soon" release at Hannants but disapear in the time ....)

cheers

Olivier

[Vesa Jussila]

Thanks President and Joan this is information I'm looking for.