The Dewoitine D.25 was a single-engine, two-seat, parasol-wing

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

built in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in the 1920s. The 1925 French two-seat fighter programme was cancelled before any orders were placed, but four examples were exported to

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Design and development

The D.25 was a

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which two or more animals, machines, or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. ''Tandem'' can also be used more generally to refer to any group of persons or objects w ...

two-seat version of the Dewoitine D.21 single-seat, parasol-wing fighter, developed to the 1925 C2 (2 seat Chasseur or fighter) programme from the Section Technique de l'Aéronautique (Technical Section of Aeronautics, STAé) for an aircraft capable of daytime and nighttime fighter duty and daytime reconnaissance. The chief structural difference between the two models, which shared the same span and length, was the D.25's second cockpit itself and the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

strengthening around it to allow a gun mounting. Though the two-seater was heavier, it had a less powerful engine: it used a Lorraine-Dietrich 12Eb water-cooled upright W-12 instead of the similarly arranged Hispano-Suiza 12Gb. Both the D.21 and D.25 had much in common with the Dewoitine D.12 of 1924. For example, the D.25's parasol wing was similar to that of the D.12, with the same span, a constant chord inner panel, outer sections tapered on both the

leading In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies. In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...

and

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. ...

s but chiefly on the latter, ending in blunt tips. It was braced to the lower fuselage by a parallel pair of long struts on each side. The D.12 and D.25 used the same Lorraine-Dietrich engine with a circular nose-mounted

radiator A radiator is a heat exchanger used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics. A radiator is always a ...

immediately behind the

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

. Flight testing of the D.25 began in 1926 but the STAé dropped the 1925 C2 programme. Dewoitine therefore sought to export it and in 1928 gained an order for four from

. These were armed with two pairs of fixed

Madsen machine gun The Madsen is a light machine gun that Julius A. Rasmussen and Theodor Schouboe designed and proposed for adoption by Colonel Herman Madsen, Vilhelm Herman Oluf Madsen, the Minister of War (Denmark), Danish Minister of War, and that the Royal Da ...

s, one fixed and fitted with synchronisation, firing forward through the propeller arc, and the other on a gun mounting in the rear cockpit. The construction of these machines was sub-contracted to the

Hanriot Aéroplanes Hanriot et Cie. or simply 'Hanriot' was a French aircraft manufacturer with roots going back to the beginning of aviation. Founded by René Hanriot in 1910 as ''The Monoplans Hanriot Company Ltd.'', the company survived in differ ...

aircraft company.

Operators

; *

Army Aviation Service The Argentine Air Force (, or simply ''FAA'') is the air force of Argentina and one of three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic. In 2018, it had 13,837 military and 6,900 civilian personnel. FAA commander in chief is Brigadie ...

Specifications

References

{{Dewoitine aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Parasol-wing aircraft 1920s French fighter aircraft D.25 Aircraft first flown in 1926