Morane-Saulnier H

The Morane-Saulnier H was an early French aircraft first flown in the months immediately before the First World War, a single-seat derivative of the Type G with a slightly reduced wingspan. Like the G it was a successful sporting and racing aircraft, and in June 1913 Roland Garros won the precision landing prize at Wiener Neustadt in one. Later that year a Type H made the first non-stop flight across the Mediterranean, from Frejus to Bizerte. The French Army ordered 26 as the MoS.1 and used them for reconnaissance in the opening phase of the war, and the Royal Flying Corps impressed and ordered others, mostly for training. German copies built as the Fokker M.5 and by Pfalz became the first of the Fokker Eindecker fighters, the first single-seat fighters with forward-firing machine guns.