Ponnier M.1

We give the RAF Se.5 some resting and, instead, we switch to a somewhat not very known French airplane that wasn't employed by the French Aeronautique Militaire, but by the Belgian Aviation Militaire.

Avions Ponnier had been trying to win a pre-war contract with their 1913 Ponnier L, but they couldn't win. In 1914, just after the beginning of the war, they tried again, this time with an airplane designed by Emile Dupont, the same one that one year later would design the, much more efficient Hanriot HD.1.

It was powered by a single 80hp le Rhône 9c engine and featured a very large domed spinner which left a very small gap for cooling between it and the engine enclosure. In every version it was armed only with a single lewis machine gun, which changed positions depending on the variant. The most interesting variant was the one flown by the Belgian ace Abel De Neef which featured an interrupter gear in order to shoot the machine gun through the propellers in a way similar to the Morane-Saulnier N.

All things considered, it wasn't a good airplane. Some contemporary fighters like the Nieuport 11 had much better performance. It was also deemed unusable by the Belgian ace Willy Coppens and therefore only 20 of them were manufactured. The only operator was the Belgian Aviation Militaire and, given the great superiority of other enemy fighters, they were only employed in night ground-attack missions without any great success.

It's also claimed that a second two-seater trainer version was planned and even offered to the Royal Flying Corps but never materialized.