Nieuport 11 and 16 |
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| Very early production Nieuport 11 with small elevators and armed with an 1909 pattern Hotchkiss machine gun . |
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| The (British) Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was one of the first to use the Nieuport 11, and operated many while still carrying French markings on the wings. |
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| Nieuport 11 in the standard clear doped linen (cdl) as it served with the RNAS and French air services. Unlike some clear doped finishes, these were not transluscent. |
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| A Macchi-built Nieuport 11 flown from early 1916 by Francesco Baracca, the top Italian ace of WW1. |
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| Italian built Nieuport 11 (originally Ni.1615) captured by the Austro-Hungarians and repaired. The new fabric on this machine was transluscent. All the crosses except those under the lower wings have white backgrounds, and there are no crosses under the upper wings. |
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| Possibly top ace Guynemer's least well known mount - or at least the shortest lived. He only scored one victory in it before it was destroyed by a Caudron G.IV that ran into it right after a major rebuild. No photographs show the tail so it may not have had the serial painted on. All the photographs show this machine in a light shade identical to the insignia blue. Other machines, including several unidentified RNAS machines seem to have been similarly doped suggesting more than just a one off. 'Le Vieux Charles' (Old Charles) originally graced the face of the cowling however after being rebuilt it was not reapplied. |
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| Reportedly one of many Nieuport 11's flown by Navarre during his stint as the Sentinel of Verdun. |
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| Another of Navarre's colourful Nieuport 11's, but this one is poorly documented, and is made up of info from several sources that may or may not all be of the same aircraft. |
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| An early clear doped Macchi built Nieuport 11 of the 76e Squadriglia |
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| A late production Nieuport Macchi 11 in the khaki camouflage used on many of the later batches. |
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| Nieuport-Macchi (now Aermacchi) built the Nieuport 11 under license and examples in the 2,000-3,000 range were camouflaged in khaki (identifiable by their slightly darker appearance). A small number of earlier machines were likely repainted in the field. The national colours on the cowling was common for the khaki scheme, and rare on the cdl machines. Italian Nieuport 11's outside this range wore the cdl scheme like the French and RNAS machines but often without roundels. Both schemes carried the national colours on the undersides of the wings to form a large flag, with the red to port, and the white represented with clear doped linen. |
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| Colourfully marked Nieuport 11 bearing the hunting horn and shield of Armand de Turrenne while flying with Escadrille N.48. |
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| Camouflaged Nieuport 11 captured by the Germans almost intact. This machine was particularly well photographed as both top and bottom were photographed while on its nose, on a truck, and left side while sitting on the ground. This machine had been flown by Capitaine le Comte JLV de Plandes Sièyes from Escadrille N.26 and was downed near Douai on July 3, 1916. |
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| One of two camouflage patterns used on the Nieuport 11 and 16. The shades of brown and green used are a mystery so they could have been reversed from what I have here. In addition the blue surrounds on the flying surfaces can appear in conjunction with either blue undersurfaces, or cdl undersurfaces. This is taken from photographs of Capitaine le Comte JLV de Plandes Sièyes machine, which had cdl undersurfaces. |
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| Unidentified camouflaged Belgian Nieuport 11 with personal markings. The same pilot also flew a Nieuport 17, also marked with 'Vampire' |
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| Nieuport 16 very late in its service life with the Belgian air service, and equiped with an unusual (for a Nieuport 16) fixed Vickers on the fuselage, and doped even more unusually in the aluminium dope that was being used on the Nieuport 17's already flying for Belgium. This machine was the first aircraft assigned to top Belgian ace Willy Coppens de Houthulst when he arrived at his first squadron. Unfortunately the heavier 110 hp LeRhone and weight of the Vickers impaired the machine's handling to such an extent that the excellent flying qualities of the type had been completely destroyed and Coppens didn't like this machine. |
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| Pristine example of an Imperial Russian Air Service Nieuport 16 as built by Dux in large numbers. These tended to wear fairly rapidly in service and often appeared stained, faded and generally abused. Roundels appeared in 14 positions. |
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| Nieuport 16 with the Imperial Russian Air Service in the typical grey finish and roundels of a Duks built example. The grey was a result of it being low grade linen with a significant amount of impurities. |
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Profiles copyright Michael Fletcher 1998-2002