The Morane-Saulnier G (AKA Type G) was a French two-seat sport and racing monoplane produced in France just before World War I. It was so successful that in 1914 Russian manufacturer Dux bought a production license to manufacture them at their Moscow factory to be employed by the Imperial Russian Air Service (IRAS).
The IRAS used their Type Gs usually as single-seaters because the accommodation for the observer (which was just a cushion placed on the fuel tank) and its location at mid-wing were considered inadequate.
The Russian-built Type Gs were made in two versions. One had a wing with a 9.3 m span and the other had 10.2 span but otherwise, both wings were identical and were hold by the same chord arrangement, with the only difference that the smaller wing was hold by two pairs of bracing wires, while the larger one was hold by three.
Most of them were powered by the Le Rhône engine rated at 80 hp. The Russians liked the Type G as it could be transported in pieces and be assembled in just 11 minutes by two skilled mechanics.
During the Great War, the Type Gs were initially used for unarmed reconnaissance, although they were also used to ram down enemy planes. The Type Gs that were in service with the 11th Air Corps (11 KAO) were unarmed except for the pistols and rifles the pilots could carry with them. The 11th KAO's commander, P.N. Nesterov, tried, in many times, to use his aircraft to crash German aircraft into the ground. For that purpose, he attached a blade to the rear of his fuselage in order to get so close to German planes to cut their wings off. He also tried to break enemy propellers by using a grapple hung from his plane. Eventually, he devised a procedure for ramming enemy planes due to his inability to find machine guns suitable for aircraft combat. During one of those rams, his Type G and the Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance aircraft he had rammed, crashed killing both crews. Other Russian aviators were, however, more successful in their ramming attacks, like Aleksander Kozakov who used an anchor hung from the bottom of his plane to destroy enemy planes. The Type G remained in front-line service until mid-1915 when they were replaced by Type Ls and Type LA parasols.
After their withdrawal from frontline service, they were assigned to training units. These were refitted with nose-wheels to prevent the student pilots from nosing over, while others were used only for taxying. Most of them were fitted with de-rated engines such as the 35 hp Anzanis. The trainer sub-variant saw three types of undercarriages: The Type G originally produced in France and fitted with the Kachinsky undercarriage, the Slyusarenko trainer and the Type G modified by Lieutenant Fride.
There was also another Russian sub-variant of the Type G; the Type WR was built for the Imperial Russian Navy and had cristal panels on the fuselage sides, ahead of the wing, in order to improve crew's vision. The drawing we made on this type is based on text descriptions only and it should be considered as purely speculative.
In 1916 a single Dux-built Type G was fitted with a 100 hp Gnome-Monosoupape engine and a smaller wing. It achieved better performance rates than the standard Type G and set a Russian altitude record of 5.200 m (170.604 ft).
It's estimated that around 20 Type Gs survived both Great War, Russian Revolutions and Civil War and remained in use until as late as 1923 in various Soviet aerial military schools such as the Tashkent Military School, 2nd Higher School of Military Pilots and the 1st and 2nd Military School of Pilots.
Sources:
1. Flying Machines Press - French Aircraft of the First World War
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morane-Saulnier_G
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