Farman Moustique
| Moustique | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Farman F 455 Super Moustique, Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace, Le Bourget, Paris | |
| Role | Sport/tourer |
| National origin | France |
| Manufacturer | Société des Aéroplanes Henry et Maurice Farman, Boulogne-Billancourt |
| First flight | May 1919 |
| Primary user | Service de l'Aviation Populaire (French government) |
| Number built | 59 |
The Farman Moustique is a family of French monoplanes built by the Société des Aéroplanes Henry et Maurice Farman and Billancourt.
Shortly after the end of World War I, Farman introduced a low powered single seat monoplane for sport and tourism. It flew for the first time in May 1919 and was named the Moustique (in English, Mosquito). A little later, aircraft of this kind became known in the United Kingdom as motor gliders, the subjects of the first Lympne Trials of 1923. In 1922 one Aviette, without its engine, had already won prizes at a national glider competition. Three months before the Lympne Trials several Aviettes competed in an equivalent French meeting for moto-aviettes at Buc. The design was revived, over 17 years after its first appearance, as the F 450 Moustique and was one of the aircraft purchased by the French government as part of l'Aviation Populaire programme.
The original Moustique, later known as the Moustique I, was a shoulder wing monoplane. The wing was rectangular in plan, fabric covered and was wired braced from above and below. The upper wires were attached to a king post protruding from the raised, curved decking ahead of the cockpit and lower wires went to the undercarriage structure. The wings carried full span ailerons.
Behind the cockpit the fuselage, which reached up only to the pilot's waist, was slender. It was square sectioned and covered with thin plywood. The parallel chord horizontal tail had separate elevators with the deep rudder moving between them. These surfaces were fabric covered and the rudder was round topped; there was no fixed fin. The undercarriage consisted of two parallel spruce panels mounted on the fuselage, bearing two mainwheels on a single axle. This first aircraft was powered by a 30 hp (22 kW) flat twin ABC Scorpion engine.
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