oiseau blanc

1 March 2001, 12:13 PM

are there any known photos of this plane, or a museum with a replica?

thanks,

leon

1 March 2001, 02:23 PM

Leon: Do a Net Search for "Nungesser": you'll find a nice rendering of the "White Bird" on a French site named named "Passions Pilots".VBR....Lee

Rod_Filan · 1 March 2001, 05:53 PM

I put together some pics of Nungesser and Coli with l'Oiseau Blanc etc.
Its too large to fit here so you'll have to click here

VBR
Rod

2 March 2001, 12:06 AM

Leon,

I've at least 2 pics from "Le chevalier du ciel" by Marcel Jullian,
If you want I can make scans,

Xavier Jouve

2 March 2001, 09:14 AM

thanks, jouve. that would be great.

the page you 'linked' ro§bud, wasn't available.

leon

Rod_Filan · 2 March 2001, 12:20 PM

I see there is a problem with that link/image in my above post. I got the same thing as Leon.
However when I got to the "error message page" I just clicked onto the url in the "location" bar, hit "enter" and voila!
Very strange. Maybe it doesn't like the long file name? Geocities has its problems I guess.

http://www.geocities.com/jastaboelck...gesserColi.jpg

VBR
Rod

2 March 2001, 03:21 PM

got it. thanks, ro§bud.
sure is an odd looking plane.
there isn't a museum anywhere with a replica?

leon

2 March 2001, 05:13 PM

Leon, you might find this of interest: somewhere in a museum (in France, I suppose) they have the actual landing gear of this aircraft. The plane was designed to finish its trans-Atlantic flight by landing ON THE WATER (of course, the water in this case being New York Harbor)-- this accounts for its "odd-looking" design. The landing gear was jettisoned over land to reduce weight and drag; it was recovered and now rests in a museum. There was a memorial structure in France where the plane's last "landfall" was; the German occupiers used it for target practice in the 1940's (and it may have been destroyed); rather spiteful, wouldn't you agree?
Ironically, Nungesser and Coli might not have qualified for the Orteig Prize had they suceeded: they were going in the wrong direction! The $25,000 was for New York TO Paris, not vice-versa.
One more point: Lindbergh, while in Paris, was gallant enough to call upon Nungesser's wife (an American, BTW) to assure her that all was being done to find her husband. You can read this on the first page of the NY Times reporting the crossing...