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Constructions Aéronautiques
Émile Dewoitine was a French aircraft manufacturer established
by Émile Dewoitine at Toulouse in October 1920. The company's
initial products were a range of metal parasol-wing fighters
which were largely ignored by the French Air Force but purchased
in large quantities abroad and licence-built in Italy, Switzerland,
and Czechoslovakia. The company was liquidated in January 1927,
with the only remaining active programme (the D.27) being transferred
to EKW in Switzerland.
The company was re-established
in Paris in March the following year as Société
Aéronautique Française (Avions Dewoitine) or SAF.
After briefly continuing D.27 production, the reconstituted firm
produced a range of fighters that became a mainstay of the French
airforce during the 1930s, the D.500 family. It also developed
important civilian airliners, such as the D.333 and its derivative
the D.338, designed for pioneering routes to French Indochina
(Vietnam), and eventually Hong Kong. The firm was nationalised
in March 1937 into the short-lived SNCA du Midi or SNCAM, and
produced the D.520 as France's best-performing fighter at the
outbreak of war, albeit in too small numbers to pose any serious
opposition to the Luftwaffe in the Battle of France. The end
of Dewoitine as a recognisable entity was its absorption into
SNCASE in December 1940, by which time Émile Dewoitine
had departed to establish SIPA, and no further aircraft were
produced under the Dewoitine name. |
