The de Marçay Passe-Partout (; ) was a small, low-powered single-seat sport and touring aircraft built in France just after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Design and development

The Passe-Partout was the smallest and lightest de Marçay aircraft of the three on display at the Paris Aero Salon of 1919. It had a very low power engine, the same ABC 8 hp adapted flat-twin motorcycle engine that powered the English Electric Wren. Flight magazine doubted its practicality with this engine.Flight, 15 January 1920, pp.63-64 It was a single bay biplane with a single interplane strut on each side defining a bay braced with a single flying wire and a single landing wire. Both wings were two spar structures; there was marked forward stagger but no dihedral The interplane struts were slender at the top but smoothly widened towards their feet, linking the upper rear spar to both lower wing spars. The narrow upper joint provided a fixed point about which control wires could warp the

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...

. Short

cabane strut In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of struts, which act in ...

s from the fuselage supported the centre of the upper wing. The Passe-Partout had a

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

fuselage of rounded rectangular cross-section. Its engine was mounted, with cylinders exposed, in the upper nose. The pilot's open cockpit placed him just aft of the upper trailing edge but over the lower wing because of the stagger. At the rear a

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

covered

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...

was mounted high on the fuselage and fitted with fabric covered

elevators An elevator (American English) or lift (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive tracti ...

. Both the fin and rounded

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

were also ply covered. Its fixed

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

was of the conventional tailskid type with mainwheels on a single axle rubber rubber sprung from a frame consisting of two V-form struts from the lower fuselage with a single cross-member.Flight, 1 January 1920, pp.16-17 The Passe-Partout hadn't yet flown when it appeared at the Paris Salon in December 1919l'Aérophile, 1–15 February 1920, p.34 but it had flown by the following May.Flight, 13 May 1920, p.552 Marçay continued to advertise it until at least October 1920l'Aérophile, 1–15 October 1920, pp.19-20 but Flight's doubts about its practicality seem to have been justified for in May 1928, when the de Marçay company ceased to exist, Les Ailes noted that the Passe-Partout had undertaken only a few, inconclusive trials and further, that de Marçay himself saw it more of a curiosity than a practical aircraft.Les Ailes, 17 May 1928, p.3

Specifications

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * *{{cite magazine, date=17 May 1928 , title=Allo! Voici, magazine=Les Ailes, volume=361 , page=3, url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6568392t/f8 1920s French sport aircraft Passe-Partout Single-engined tractor aircraft Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1920