Nieuport-Delage NiD 42

NiD.42, 52, 62
Nieuport-Delage NiD.52 prototype in French markings prior to delivery to Spain. The 42 was similar but had a wooden fuselage and relocated radiators.
Role	Fighter
National origin	France
Manufacturer	Nieuport-Delage
Designer	Gustave Delage
First flight	1924
Introduction	1924
Retired	1940
Status	retired
Primary user	Aéronautique Militaire
Number built	882
Developed from	Nieuport-Delage Sesquiplan
Variants	Nieuport-Delage NiD 52 Nieuport-Delage NiD 62

The Nieuport-Delage NiD 42 was a fighter aircraft built in France in the early 1920s, the first in a family of designs that would form the backbone of the French fighter force over the next decade.

As first built, the NiD 42 was a highly streamlined parasol-wing monoplane with a monocoque fuselage and an open cockpit of which a single prototype was built. Soon afterwards, Nieuport-Delage built two examples of a modified version for the 1924 Coupe Beaumont as the NiD 42S, on which the main wings were mounted directly to the sides of the upper fuselage at shoulder position with a short subsidiary wing fitted around the undercarriage axle.. To further streamline the design, the surface radiators were installed on the upper surface of the wing.

One of these aircraft was flown by Joseph Sadi Lecointe in the race of 22 June and was the only one out of the five entrants to actually finish the course. Indeed, having finished the prescribed six laps of the 50 km (31 mi) course, Sadi-Lecointe flew another four laps to break the world speed record over a 500-km closed-course. His average speed in winning the Coupe Beaumont was 311 km/h (193 mph; 168 kn) and over the 500 km (310 mi) was 306 km/h (190 mph; 165 kn), beating the previous record for the latter by 36 km/h (22 mph; 19 kn). On 15 February the following year, Sadi Lecointe took a NiD 42S up to a speed of 375 km/h (233 mph; 202 kn) and went on to win the 1925 Coupe Beaumont with a NiD 42S on 18 October with an average speed of 313 km/h (194 mph; 169 kn).

While the NiD 42S was achieving these distinctions, development continued on the fighter version. Nieuport-Delage designed two further such variants in 1924; a single-seater designated NiD 42 C.1 and a similar machine with a second cockpit for a tail gunner with a machine gun in a ring mount, designated the NiD 42 C.2. One of the latter was exhibited at that year's Salon de l'Aéronautique, along with a NiD 42 C.1 nose section to illustrate an alternative engine mount. These differed from the original NiD 42 fighter in having a second, small wing added to the lower fuselage, turning the parasol monoplane into a sesquiplane, a design feature adopted from the NiD 37 which would be a key identifying feature through most of the versions developed from the 42.

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Wikipedia