Levavasseur and Gastambide "Variable Surface Airplane" of 1920

[Stargazer]

Hi all! Has anyone seen this strange bird before? Can anyone identify it? Did it ever fly?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[hesham]

My dear Skyblazer,

it was Gastambide-Levavasseur;

http://modelarchives.free.fr/Bestiaire/GAST_P/

 

[Schneiderman]

Gastambide held a number of patents for systems to change the profile and area of wings. The one relevant to this aircraft is FR574971

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks friends.

Just a little after I found the first article, I found the in-depth one they published the following week, confirming indeed that this was a Levavasseur and Gastambide project. Here is the article:

 

[Kdmoo]

There were two versions of this concept as hesham's link confirms.

Skyblazer's initial post is the first design:

Skyblazer's article features the second more streamlined effort and did fly as you can see in this video which is wrongly labeled as a Makhonine idea:

(At 1:06 into the video you see footage of the earlier version displaying the variable wing concept).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwv5CdKh-8g


Kevin

 

[Stargazer]

Great contribution to the subject, Kdmoo, thanks!

I wonder why the video gives the date "1931" since it clearly is a much earlier airplane. Was it still test-flown by that time? Seems odd.

 

[dan_inbox]

For what it's worth: I have the machine of Skyblazer's 1st post as "Gastambide-Levavasseur GL-2 of 1919", and the other machine as GL-1.
(For the references Gestapo: source is Dan's hard disk, as usual)

Aviafrance also dates this "GL-2" as 1919, without mentioning any GL-number:
in https://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=10053&ID_CONSTRUCTEUR=1520&ANNEE=1919&ID_MISSION=0&MOTCLEF=

hth.

 

[hesham]

Hi,

from TU magazine,here is the GL-1 & GL-2.