Édouard Nieuport

Born Aug. 24, 1875, in Blida, Algeria; died Sept. 16, 1911, in Charny-sur-Meuse, near Verdun, France. French aviator and aircraft designer.

Nieuport was the first designer (1910) to build a monoplane with a deep fuselage entirely covered by fabric that protected the pilot from the neck down. This design drastically improved the flight performance of the aircraft. In 1911 with an engine rated at 20.6 kilowatts (kW), or 28 hp, and with a propeller also designed by Nieuport, the airplane set new records for flight speed (120 km/hr) and distance (about 1,000 km). In 1911, Nieuport and his brother Charles founded the Nieuport Company, which manufactured sesquiplane aircraft that were used by France and Russia during World War I (1914–18) as the basic fighter planes. P. N. Nesterov, flying a Nieuport 4, was the first to perform a loop (1913). K. K. Artseulov, in a Nieuport 21 (1913), was the first to execute an intentional spin. The Nieuport 10, 17, 21, and 23 were used during the Civil War of 1918–20 and then as trainers (until 1925).