Breguet's Pre-1914 Chalenge #127

[Varese2002]

The Belgian Baron Pierre de Caters (1875-1944) was in his early years also an active cyclist. He was of considerable wealth, which he used for his great passion of flight.

His first flight in Belgium (October 25, 1908) was done with a Goupy Triplane he had bought in Paris at the Voisin factory. The flight of 800 meter was made on the flat ground near his castle Kattenhof in the neighbourhood of Antwerp. He switched quickly to Voisin biplanes.

As 'everybody' De Caters started a flying school on his own land, St. Job-in-'t-Goor. The flying school was named Aviator. Four biplanes were built by the Bollekens brothers for the flying lessons.

Unfortunately the flying school of De Caters was not selected for military training, so in the end financially things god bad and De Caters sold his flying school, aircraft and personnel to Bollekens.

The Aviator aircraft factory (February 17, 1910) was situated at Lissewege near Brugge. The Aviator No.2 was given to King Albert of Belgium in 1911, but no orders from the military were received.

I give the French text about the Aviator factory and what they built. It appears that the machines were actually built by Bollekens

Le 17 février 1910, de Caters procède à la création d’une société d’aviation dénommée « Aviator ». L’entreprise détient la représentation des appareils « Aviatik » d’origine allemande (sous licence Farman) qu’elle baptise du nom de la firme. Ce sont les frères Bollekens qui sont chargés de construire les « Aviator » pour le compte du baron.

I have no information about an Aviator Monoplan (Herb Sieger has some spurious, unchecked data in his lists).

So after this lengthy part of Pierre de Caters, this is no Aviator monoplan. The Challenge machine is not covered in the lists of Sieger.

Have a good day

Kees

[Varese2002]

A postcard of De Caters in a biplane with Aviatik on the rudder.

Cheers

Kees

[Rbailey]

Could this describe the machine?

Gerard et Salkin, Un Nouveau Monoplan Belge
Rev.Arienne, 3e annee No. 83, (mars 1912) Paris p. 174

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Rbailey

Could this describe the machine?

Gerard et Salkin, Un Nouveau Monoplan Belge
Rev.Arienne, 3e annee No. 83, (mars 1912) Paris p. 174

I have no information on the Gerard et Salkin monoplan, but it is not the Challenge monoplane.

This is a short (incomplete) list of Belgian aviation pioneers (pre-1914) who designed and built at least one machine:

Barachin, Bataille, Beheughe, Boel, Bothy, Bracke, Bulot, Chantraine, De Bongnie, De la Hault, Descominnes, D'Hespel, Doné, Goffaux, Harel, Kaufmann, Lanser, Lepousse, Linon, Marchand, Poncelet, Roofthooft, Vandenbergh, Vasseur, Vleminckz, Wansom, Williams

As said this list is not necessarily complete, but at least contains the designer / builder of this machine.

Cheers

Kees

[Rbailey]

I suppose we could go through them alphabetically. I have seen reference to a Barachin (actually, Doné et Barachin) monoplane but don't have anything on it.

[Varese2002]

No Baranchin monoplane here .....

Hint - 1

The designer of this Challenge machine (an engineer) was also the editor of the L'année aéronautique belge a yearbook.

Cheers

Kees

[aerohydro]

Which must mean that the Challenge machine is the monoplane of Albert Bracke.

Paul

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by aerohydro

Which must mean that the Challenge machine is the monoplane of Albert Bracke.

Paul

Exactly, Albert Bracke. Please give any more on him and his machine if available. I must go away now, will be back in 12 hours to finish off this 'Belgian' Challenge.

Have a great day

Kees

[Rod_Filan]

Few people are aware that the inventor of the joystick, Joseph Chantraine, lived and worked in Kortenberg in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant.

And now you do too.

Chantraine patented several inventions and in 1906 patented a ballpoint pen (maybe the ballpoint pen?), and the same year patented a classifier system (whatever that is?)

In early 1907 Joseph Chantraine was awarded patent No. 198,483 for his “Aéromobile”. This aircraft was a monoplane controlled by means of a joystick and driven by three strong bicycle wheels driven by chains. The wings were made of bamboo covered with light tarpaulin.
-

To get to Chantraine I randomly eliminated:

Kaufmann
De la Hault
Bothy
Bulot
Poncelet
Goffaux
d'Hespel
Lanser
Vleminckz

and was just about to give up for the night.

Now I will.

-
Cheers

[Rod_Filan]

Originally Posted by Kees

Exactly, Albert Bracke.

D'oh !

Foiled again!

I even had to translate Dutch(!) to figure all that out!

Cheers

Okay... maybe they were wheels off a small bicycle... but you can see where that cycling hint really screwed me up.