Nieuport Triplane

The Nieuport Triplanes were a short series of experimental stagger-wing triplane fighters built by the French firm Nieuport during the First World War. Nieuport's chief designer, Gustave Delage, conceived in 1915 a staggered triplane wing in which each of three narrow single-spar wings was carried by a single triangular interplane strut, a layout meant to cut drag, improve stability and increase lift. Delage tried it first on a two-seat Nieuport 10 with a Le Rhône 9C rotary engine, then on single-seat conversions of the Nieuport 17 and 17bis. Only three or four examples were evaluated by the French army aviation and by the British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service. British test pilots judged the performance considerably inferior to that of contemporary fighting scouts, and none of the aircraft was accepted for production.