[MOC] Schneider Trophy - Deperdussin Monocoque Coupe Schneider (Monaco 1913)

Hod Carrier · April 7

The first ever Schneider Trophy meeting was held in 1913 at Monaco. Given France’s pre-eminent position in the field of aviation at this point in history, it is perhaps not surprising that the majority of entries for the first ever Schneider Trophy were French. The only exception to this was Charles Weymann who, although educated in France and flying a French Nieuport aircraft, was representing the USA.

As might be expected, this first meeting was to be a test of endurance rather than out-and-out speed. First away was Maurice Prévost in a Deperdussin Monocoque design. Although slower than Weymann and Gabriel Espanet in their Nieuports, Prévost was able to build a lead thanks to his superior technique in taking the turns on the course. One by one, the challenge of the Nieuports faded as each in turn dropped out with engine trouble.

Having completed the race distance, Prévost alighted and taxi-ed across the finish line. This was a mistake as the rules called for competitors to fly over the finish line, and so he was disqualified. He initially refused advice to go back up and comply with the rule, but when he saw that his final competitor, Roland Garros at the controls of a Morane-Saulnier, had managed to overcome some initial engine troubles and enter the race, he saw sense. He quickly took off and flew over the finish line to be declared the winner.

The Deperdussin Monocoque Coupe Schneider flown by Prévost was an enlarged version of the landplane design that had proven so adept at winning races in the Gordon Bennett Trophy series as well as netting a number of performance records. The Monocoque name referred to the method of construction, whereby the fuselage was constructed in two halves using wood laminations glued together over formers and then joined, giving the fuselage it’s strength. Designed by Louis Bécherau, it was powered by a 160hp 14-cylinder dual-row Gnome rotary engine and equipped with pontoon-style floats.

In spite of the many successes that came the way of Bécherau’s designs under the Deperdussin banner, the company was not to survive the discovery that Armand Deperdussin had built his success on money that was not his own. Arrested and convicted of fraud in 1913, Deperdussin was to take his own life eleven years later. The company was taken over by Louis Blériot the name was changed from Société pour les Appariels Deperdussin (SPAD) to Société Anonyme pour l’Aviation et ses Dérivés (SPAD), under which banner Bécherau designed the famous Spad fighters of the First World War.