Émile Dewoitine
Émile Dewoitine (Crépy-en-Laonnais, September 26, 1892 – Toulouse, July 5, 1979) was a French engineer and industrialist, nicknamed "Mimile-bras-de-fer" ("Mimile iron-arm") for his tenacity and intransigence. He worked at the French aerospace company Aérospatiale in the St-Eloi facilities. The producer of around fifty aircraft models, he is considered the father of Toulouse's aerospace industry.
Biography
Early Activities and World War I
Born in Crépy-en-Valois, northern France, on September 26, 1892, Dewoitine completed his secondary studies in Reims and trained as a technician at the École Breguet, specializing in the "Electricity" branch. He performed military service in 1911, receiving his pilot's license in February that year, first at Satory in the engineer corps, and later as a mechanic at the Blériot School in Etampes. He took part in some of the first major flights of the French military aviation on Farman biplanes in Algeria and Tunisia before being discharged and returning to civilian life in February 1914.
When World War I broke out in August 1914, Dewoitine was mobilized and, at the beginning of 1915, was sent to the French Expeditionary Corps on the Russian-Romanian Front. His experience as an aviation mechanic led to his appointment as director of the Anatra company's plants in Odessa, where he worked on assembling Voisin bombers. Soon after, he was tasked with setting up a factory in Simferopol to license-build other military aircraft such as Farman, Morane-Saulnier, and Nieuport models. The Russian Revolution of 1917 forced his return to France, where he joined the SFA (Service for Aeronautical Manufacturing) at Latécoère in Toulouse. Starting from scratch, he organized mass production of Salmson 2A2 reconnaissance biplanes and smaller batches of Breguet XIV aircraft, producing over six hundred units by December 1918 when production ended. Dewoitine was demobilized in 1919 and left Latécoère in 1920.
Industrial Activities in the Interwar Period
A staunch advocate of all-metal aircraft construction, and unable to find enough support at Latécoère for such projects, Dewoitine left the company and in October 1920 founded his own business, Société Anonyme des Avions Dewoitine (SAD) in Toulouse. His first design was the single-seat D.1 fighter aircraft, meeting specifications published by the National Aeronautics Directorate. The aircraft was a success, with thirty units ordered for the French Navy and numerous exports. Two prototypes were ordered in 1921, with the first flight in November 1922. Piloting one of these aircraft, Marcel Doret broke three world aviation records in 1924. Other models like the D.9 and D.21 single-seaters were also commercial successes, with licensed production in countries such as Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Switzerland, where his D.27 fighter was accepted for operational service.
Dewoitine also worked on bomber and passenger aircraft projects but shifted focus to glider designs. In May 1922, he developed the P.1, a partially flexible fuselage glider, followed by the P.2, both demonstrating excellent performance. The P.3, designed with Robert Castello, although never certified, set a record for glider endurance with a flight of 8 hours and 36 minutes on January 31, 1925.
Due to market disinterest and other factors, Dewoitine ceased aircraft production in France in January 1927, liquidating the company and transferring the D.27 parasol monoplane project to the Eidgenössische Konstruktionswerkstätten (EKW) in Thun, Switzerland.
The company was re-established in Paris in March of the following year as Société Aéronautique Française (Avions Dewoitine) or SAF. After briefly continuing D.27 production, SAF developed a range of fighter aircraft that became a cornerstone of the French Air Force in the 1930s, namely the D.500 series. The Dewoitine D.500 was the first all-metal monoplane fighter of the French Air Force.
Dewoitine also developed notable civil aircraft, including the three-engine Dewoitine D.332 and its derivatives, the S.333 and D.338, designed for routes to French West Africa and French Indochina, and the Dewoitine D.33, a large monoplane built to set world records. In 1936, part of the French aviation industry was nationalized, and Dewoitine's factories were absorbed by the short-lived SNCAM. During the Battle of France in 1940, the Dewoitine D.520 proved to be France's best fighter aircraft.
World War II
In 1940, Dewoitine traveled to the United States, proposing to Henry Ford and General Arnold the large-scale production of the Dewoitine D.520 and its derivatives in the U.S. The fall of France and subsequent armistice with Germany halted these efforts.
In 1941, with France partially occupied by Germany, the Vichy government reorganized the aviation industry, merging six National Companies, including SNCAM (formerly Dewoitine), into two major groups: SNCASE, centered around Toulouse and Marseille, and SNCASO, centered around Bordeaux.
Disagreements with Vichy industrial policy led Dewoitine to leave SNCASE and relocate to Paris, in the German-occupied zone, where he was tasked with establishing the Société Industrielle Pour l'Aviation (SIPA), a company producing training and liaison aircraft under license for the German Luftwaffe.
Postwar Exile
Accused of collaboration after the Liberation of France, Dewoitine fled to Spain, where he developed a derivative of the D.520 with Hispano Aviación. He later moved to Argentina, where in 1946 he was hired by the Fábrica Militar de Aviones in Córdoba, working with Argentine engineers to develop the Pulqui I, South America's first jet-powered aircraft.
In France, Dewoitine was tried in absentia and sentenced to 20 years of forced labor. [1]Eventually, he settled in Switzerland, and once his crimes were statute-barred, he returned to France, where he lived until his death in Toulouse.
External Links
- Esta obra contiene una traducción derivada de «Dewoitine» de Wikipedia en francés, publicada por sus editores bajo la Licencia de documentación libre de GNU y la Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional.