| Type H | |
|---|---|
 Morane Saulnier Type H on display at theMusée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Paris Le Bourget airport | |
| General information | |
| Type | Sport aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Morane-Saulnier |
| History | |
| First flight | 1913 |
| Developed from | Morane-Saulnier G |
| Variant | Morane-Saulnier L |
TheMorane-Saulnier H was an early aircraft first flown in France in the months immediately preceding theFirst World War; it was a single-seat derivative of the successfulMorane-Saulnier G with a slightly reduced wingspan[1][2] Like the Type G, it was a successful sporting and racing aircraft: examples serving with the French army were used in the opening phases of the war.
German versions, theFokker Eindecker fighters, were armed with forward-firing machine guns and became the first single-seatfighter aircraft so armed.
During the second international aero meet, held atWiener Neustadt in June 1913,Roland Garros won the precision landing prize in a Type H.[3] Later that same year, a Morane-Saulnier H was used to complete the first non-stop flight across theMediterranean, fromFréjus in the south of France toBizerte inTunisia.[4]
The French Army ordered a batch of 26 aircraft under the designation MoS.1.[2] French-built machines saw limited service in the opening stages of World War I, with pilots carrying out reconnaissance missions and occasionally engaging in aerial combat using revolvers and carbines.[2] The British Royal Flying Corps also acquired a small number, impressing three civilian-owned aircraft on the outbreak of the war, and ordering 36 machinesGrahame-White, who was manufacturing the type in the UK under licence in two batches. The RFC mainly used the Type Hs for training, with only one example seeing service with operational squadrons (4 and12 Squadrons).[5]
A German-built copy entered production as theFokker M.5 in 1913: it featured a slightly longer fuselage, framed in steel tube rather than wood, a comma shaped rudder, and a redesigned undercarriage integrated with the under-wing bracing pylons. When armed in 1915 with asynchronised machine gun it became the first of theFokker "Eindecker" monoplane fighters.[6]
The type was also produced under licence in Germany by thePfalz Flugzeugwerke: during the war the company built armed versions as theE.I,E.II,E.IV,E.V, andE.VI, with increasingly powerful engines. Like the better known Fokkers, with which they were often confused by Allied airmen, these were armed with a single, synchronisedlMG 08 machine gun.[7][8]
A Type H is preserved at theMusée de l'Air et de l'Espace inLe Bourget and another at theFantasy of Flight inFlorida. Several replicas are in museums or flying.
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General characteristics
Performance
