Bugatti Aircraft Association - News

These are images of the wooden propeller of the flying-wing airplane "deMonge Type 7.5" of 1925. This airplane was powered by two Bugatti Brescia 4-cylinder engines of 1500cc each. The propeller is made by the Lumiere company, which was at that time owned by deMonge. Photographs were kindly sent to us by owner Daniel Lapp from France.

Apparently Louis deMonge, known for being the chief-designer for Ettore Bugatti's 100P air racer, made the design of this improved propeller during his military service in World War One, on a shed door which he converted into a drawing table. Aparently the design was succesfull, in being a much more efficient propeller than what was used up to that date.

This propeller was one of two that were used on the deMonge 7.5, one of the various airplanes designed and built by Louis de Monge, sometimes in cooperation with others. The 7.5 was a small flying wing design, the 7.3 being a bigger version.

The propeller has the Lumiere factory mark on it, and is inscribed on the hub; "de Monge 7.5" and "Bugatti 1500". Above on the right an image of the deMonge 7.5, showing that the fuselage has a wing profile. More about deMonge and his creations in various issues of "Pegasus"

As you may know, this association was run by myself, Jaap Horst, for 10 years now, in which period I made 18 issues of the Newsletter Pegasus, and in which period the number of members grew steadily to about 55 today.

As the BAA is an international organization, distances make it difficult to organize meetings, where people can actually see each other, and talk about the airplane. If we can make a separate branch organization for each major country, there can be meetings for each country separately. I made the following member count:

13 in Netherlands/Belgium
10 in France/Switzerland
17 in USA
8 in UK

Logically, it was decided that we need a branch in the USA, UK, French and the Netherlands. Other countries (Italy, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland) have only one or a few members each. Members of these countries can of course attend the branch meetings in other countries.

After this decision, I had contact with possible board members for each country, I had already some enthusiastic members with whom I was communicating a lot, so the board members (or directors) for the different countries are the following:

USA: John M. Mellberg of High Point, North Carolina possibly with help from his son (also John) and Michael Firczuk of Durham, New Hampshire.

France: Frederic Gasson of Sceaux (near Paris) .

Netherlands: Jaap Horst of Nieuwegein and Martijn Visser of Wilnis.

UK: Paul Nickalls of Much Wenlock, Shropshire

Contact details for the board members; further down the page.

The BAA during 10 years was mostly a paper association. Members came together once at Retromobile, and in august 2005 we organized a stand at the Dietz airshow. Between Frederic Gasson and myself rose the idea to organize again a meeting, and this time let it coincide with the Retromobile classic car show in Paris, which is held every February. Idea behind this move was that many Bugattistes, and among them quite a few BAA-members, visit Retromobile every year. A contact was made with the musée de l’Air et Espace at LeBourget airport, on the northside of Paris. However, it turned out that the museum would not give us a conference-location for free. As the BAA is not a very rich association, we could not go forward with this. Frederic contacted the Retromobile organization (Thierry Farges) which had a new possibility; the organization of conferences! In fact, for the conferences they use the location where the Bonhams auction was held. There were two downsides; the conference should be held the 2nd weekend of the Retromobile (with most BAA members going the 1st weekend), and the language of all speeches should be in French…

From then we (Frederic mainly) moved fast-forward with the organization. He invited Aviation author Philippe Ricco to hold an introduction on the airplane (My French turned out to be not too bad, but I still held my short welcome speech in English, Frederic translated it), the students of ENSICA aeronautical university in Toulouse would hold an introduction on the study they are currently performing on the 100P airplane, and Frederic would hold a talk about the future. The date was set to Saturday February 16, the next day there would be a possibility to meet at the musée de l’Air et Espace.

So, what new informations were given during the conference? In the following, a short overview of the speeches held, and the surprising aspects in the contents thereof. Photo: Frederic Gasson

Philippe Ricco - L’avion Bugatti 100P
The subjects covered by Philippe were the following: Evolution of French Aviation, Bugatti and aviation, Louis De Monge, Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe, Construction of the Bugatti 100P, other realisations by coworkers. Philippe comments how in the beginning of the 20th century France was the centre of the development of aviation, with many pioneering aviators. During the first world war, airplane manufacture was industrialised. He went on about the early post war period where mainly warproducts were re-used, and the futher rationalisation and regroupement of producers that took place later in the inbetween war years..

He then focuses on the involvement of Bugatti in aviation, with the WW1 engines and the Bugatti-licensed engines. Philippe shows a lot of unknown photographs, which makes this part very interesting.

Apart from the well-known Breguet Léviathan, of which Philippe showed some hitherto unknown photographs like the one above (which is in fact a color photograph, or maybe a colored photograph) and a blueprint for this “Avion Type 20” 900hp powerplant, also the more unknown Gyroplane Laboratoire Breguet was included, with many more photographs. The Bugatti-shape radiator, as well as the outline of the 8-cilindre Breguet-Bugatti engine can be seen. See for more info Pegasus 12.

Philippe ends this story on Bugatti in aviation with a list of (french) patents, many of them already known.

The story logically continues with an overview of airplane constructions by Louis de Monge, Philippe gives the following list, and gives a few new photographs:
1914 : Buscaylet expérimental à aile « vivante »
1921 : Lumière-De Monge 5/1
1923 : Buscaylet-De Monge 5/2
1925 : De Monge 7/3
1925 : De Monge 7/5
1927 : De Monge 10-1 (Koolhoven FK-31)
1931 : De Monge 120 RN3

Especially the 1923 Buscaylet-De Monge 5/2 and the 1925 De Monge 7/3 were airplanes that I did not know of yet, and which are a very interesting addition to the history that finally led to the Bugatti 100P.

Philippe then gave an overview of the history of the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe, a Prize created in 1900 by Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe and Ernest Archdeacon. There were 5 races from 1912 to 1922 over 200, two times 200, and finally 300 km. It was recreated in 1931 by Suzanne Deutsch de la Meurthe, there were 3 races in 1933, 1934 and 1935.

Philippe Ricco goes on to the development history of the Bugatti aircraft, with the 1st 2x3.2 litre design which was not executed, the 100P, 101P (with smaller wingspan) and the 110P (the combat version). He shows a few photo’s that were not shown in Pegasus before. Also, Philippe shows new drawings, made by André Tilley. Philippe Ricco finishes with an overview of later constructions made by those that worked on the Bugatti airplane, André Stark, André Grenet and Max Holste. Especially the last was quite successful after the war.

Florent Barbes, Yannick Neubrand, Morgan Cotel, Elena Collado Morata
Étude en soufflerie du domaine de vol basses vitesses
The above students of ENSICA in Toulouse are studying the behaviour of the Bugatti 100P. This project was initiated by Frederic Gasson, who will built the 1:5 scale model (shown above) which will be used in the windtunnel tests. Goal of the study is to increase the knowledge of especially the low-speed stability of the Bugatti airplane. Roughly, there are 3 stages in the project:
- Preliminary study, in which the order of magnitude of the different parameters (speed, forces etc.) are estimated
- The windtunnel test itself and the preparations for this test.
- Post-test analysis: Transposition to real scale
Scale effect (Reynolds)
Geometry and speed
Turbulences
Direct analysis
Analysis using computer simulations

The windtunnel used for the testing was built in 1941, and was used for the testing of many aircraft, including the Concorde.

Results of this study will be published in Pegasus in the near future!

Frederic Gasson - Bugatti 100P revival project
Frederic Gasson goes into the post-war history of the Bugatti airplane, of course ending in the situation as it is today, in the EAA museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

He then goes into the details of the airplane, showing many interesting photographs. Shown is a period photograph of the wing, clearly showing the flaps of the Bugatti 100P airplane. Most of these were taken when the plane was being restored in Oshkosh. I was told by John Mellberg that the, now characteristic red color for the cockpit and the grey colour for the engine compartment was painted like this by Les Lefferts, to hide the bad shape that the wood of the fuselage structure was in.

Frederic continues with the history of speed records in aviation, with both the absolute records (for propeller planes) both the sea-planes as the landplanes. Interestingly, Frederic also mentions some speeds for (modern) aircraft with limited power. See table on the right. This of course also relates to his project for a flying replica of the Bugatti airplane, which, when executed in France, is easiest to get certified when the power is limited to 250HP. Knowing how he made the 1:5 RC model, this will probably be executed in carbon fibre– epoxy.

The meeting lasted for about 2 and a half hours, with approximately 50 people attending, which was quite good in fact! With thanks to Thierry Farges and the Retromobile organisation! After the conference there was vivid talk amongst all aviation and Bugatti enthusiasts.

The following day there was a visit to the musée de l’Air et de l’Espace at Le Bourget airport, also in Paris, where about 10 people saw some of the contestants in the coupe Deutsch de le Meurthe, as well as of course the big H32 Breguet - Bugatti T32B engine shown.

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