Saturday, 19 December 2020

SIPA S.10 & SIPA S.11

 
The SIPA S.10 was the French denomination for the German-developed Arado Ar.396 all-wooden trainer aircraft, which was designed entirely in France, at Société Industrielle pour l’Aéronautique (SIPA) where the prototype of the Ar.396, named Ar.396 V1 flew for the first time in December 1944 and served as a de facto prototype for the SIPA S.10.
After the liberation SIPA began the serial production of the S.10 for the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force). The S.10 differed from the Ar.396 in the powerplant; it was powered by a Renault 12S-00 engine which yielded 580 hp of power and was itself an updated version of the German Argus As.411 engine. Like the Ar.396 it was armed with a single machine gun which in this case was a 7.5 mm MAC instead of the German 7.92 mm MG 17. A total of 30 aircraft were built (only 6 according to some other sources) between late 1944 and 1945 and all of them served with the French piloting school. After that the production was switched towards the more advanced SIPA S.11.
The SIPA S.11 was a development of the S.10 brought to the standards of the Armée de l'Air who planned to use the aircraft not just as a trainer but also as a light-armed ground attack aircraft that could be used as a trainer too. 
The prototype of the S.11 took off for the first time on 4th July 1946 and, after successful trials, the contract was awarded to SIPA for the production of an initial batch for 54 machines, under the designation of S.111. The S.11 entered serial production in 1947, was armed with two machine guns placed in the cowling and had underwing racks for light bombs, which usually consisted on a single 50 kg or four 10 kg per block. Alternatively two MATRA T10 unguided rockets could be carried under each wing. When armed with bombs or rockets, this sub-variant was denominated as S.111A.
From the mid-1950s onwards some S.111 took part in the Algerian War. They took the advantage that, during the early part of the war, the Algerian rebels had not anti-air capacity, so the S.111 was used as reconnaissance, spotter or light-attack aircraft with success. 










Sources:
1. http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other/s10.html (translated)
2. https://www.armedconflicts.com/Arado-Ar-396-A-t6485
3. http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other/s11.html (translated)

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