The Antoinette VIII was a French pioneering aircraft flown in 1909, a development in the series of monoplanes designed by Léon Levavasseur beginning with the Antoinette IV.Dumas 1909, p.149The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft 1981, p.238Gibbs-Smith 1966, p.39 It was one of a number of Antoinette designs flown at the (Great Aviation Week in Champagne) in August 1909.
Relatively little is known about this aircraft today.Opdycke 1999, p.23
Design The Antoinette VIII was a high-wing, wire-braced monoplane of conventional layout. The fuselage was a monocoque structure, triangular in cross-section. The vertical tail extended above and below the horizontal stabilizer. The pilot sat in an open cockpit, and directional control was achieved by wing-warping. Power was supplied by a piston engine in the nose driving a tractor propeller. The aircraft was fitted with conventional undercarriage.
Operational history The Antoinette VIII first flew on 15 August 1909Munson 1969, p.99 with Antoinette test pilot Émile Ruchonette at the controls. He made a series of short flights in it that day, ending in a hard landing. Ruchonnette made a number of other flights in the aircraft during August and September. The longest of these was a flight of 16 minutes on 17 August at Mourmelon.
The aircraft competed in the (Great Aviation Week in Champagne) later in August under the race number 11 but failed to win any prizes.
Another flight by Ruchonette on 6 September also ended in a hard landing, but aviation historian Charles Gibbs-Smith notes the aircraft as still flying after the end of the year.
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