Gastambide-Mengin monoplane

The Gastambide-Mengin monoplane, later called the Gastambide-Mengin I and, once rebuilt, the Gastambide-Mengin II or Antoinette II, was the first aeroplane built by the French Antoinette company. Léon Levavasseur designed it, and it took its name from Jules Gastambide, who financed the firm, and Gabriel Mengin, the aircraft engineer. A single 50 hp (37 kW) Antoinette piston engine drove a tractor propeller, and the machine ran on an unusually complex quadricycle undercarriage. It made four short flights between 8 and 14 February 1908, the longest about 150 metres. Rebuilt with triangular ailerons hinged to the trailing edge, it flew again in August 1908: on 20 August Robert Gastambide became the first passenger carried in a monoplane, and on 21 August it flew what is recorded as the first circle by a monoplane. Levavasseur used what it taught him to design the family of Antoinette monoplanes that followed.