Antoinette V

The Antoinette V was an early French monoplane first flown on 20 December 1908, a development of the Antoinette IV from the workshop of Léon Levavasseur. It had a larger upper vertical tail with no fabric on the lower fin framework, and a wooden fuselage of triangular section covered in fabric except around the cockpit; the wings were built the same way. Its undercarriage put a closely spaced pair of main wheels at the rear of a carriage and skid that reached forward of the propeller, with outrigger wheels on a wire-braced frame for stability on the ground. The pilot worked wheels beside the seat for roll and pitch and a rudder bar for yaw, with a triangular elevator, rhomboidal ailerons at the wingtips and two triangular rudders. Powered by a 37 kW (50 hp) Antoinette 8V engine, it was 11.5 m long with a 12.8 m span, and the Antoinette V proved easy to fly after delivery to René Demanest and enjoyed some success. Its wing warping system was later reused by Levavasseur on the Antoinette VII.