Antoinette military monoplane

The Antoinette military monoplane, also known as the Antoinette Monobloc or the Antoinette-Latham, was a three-seat monoplane built in France in 1911 by the Antoinette company in the hope of attracting orders from the French military. Designed by Léon Levavasseur and Jules Gastambide, it was strikingly ahead of its time, with unbraced cantilever wooden wings, an enclosed streamlined fuselage, wheel fairings and an engine with steam cooling and direct fuel injection. A network of copper tubes along the fuselage acted as the radiator for its Antoinette 8V engine, and for the military trials at Reims in September and October 1911 a larger V12 engine of 100 hp was fitted. It was 11.5 m long with a 15.9 m span and a gross weight of 1,250 kg. Underpowered, it at best managed a short hop at the Reims concours, failed to attract any orders, and the Antoinette company went bankrupt soon afterwards.