Sud Aviation SE-116 Voltigeur

The Sud Aviation SE-116 Voltigeur was a French twin-engined army support aircraft of the late 1950s, intended for observation, photography and ground attack. It came out of a French programme begun in 1958, during the Algerian War, for a counter-insurgency aircraft; the other contenders were the SIPA S.1100 and, slightly later, the Dassault Spirale. The Voltigeur was a low-wing cantilever monoplane with a glazed nose and cabin, tricycle landing gear with twin main wheels for rough strips, and perforated airbrakes behind the wing. The first prototype used Wright Cyclone radial engines and the second used Turbomeca Bastan turboprops. The first flight was on 5 June 1958 by Roger Carpentier, and the turboprop version flew on 15 December 1958. On 9 January 1959 tail flutter in a high-speed run killed Carpentier and two colleagues. Only three aircraft were built, and the programme was dropped without series production.