Félix du Temple’s Monoplane

An illustration of Félix du Temple’s 1874 design for a Monoplane. This side perspective here doesn’t properly capture the wingspan, which is pictured below.

Félix du Temple was a French naval officer best known for his early flying machine designs. He was active in the late 19th century and was a contemporary of Jean-Marie Le Bris, another Frenchman known for his experiments in early flying machines. Pictured above is an illustration of du Temple’s design for a monoplane, which he and his brother Luis built and tested in 1874. One such test saw the machine take off from a ski-jump and glide for a bit before safely landing back on the ground. This flight, though short, gave the craft a claim to the first successful powered flight in history.[1]

17 years earlier, du Temple first achieved flight at a different scale, with his 1857 design for a model plane. Pictured below are his patent drawings for the model, which he called Canot Planeur (French for glider canoe), submitted the same year. Du Temple and his brother built several models of the design, and were able to achieve powered take-offs and landings through the use of miniature steam engines. These flights can make the claim to the first powered flight of any kind in history, however there are competing claims to this. The patent included retractable landing gear, a large propeller at the front of the craft, and a large pair of dihedral wings. The Canot Planeur is quite similar to the yet-to-be-designed Monoplane, which was no doubt heavily inspired by these smaller model crafts.

Félix du Temple’s 1857 patent drawings for his monoplane design. You can see the wide wingspan and the backward pitch of the machine when grounded.

What’s striking about the Monoplane’s design is the massive propeller and the unfortunate placement of the pilot, largely exposed, directly behind it. Normally the pilot is placed inside some sort of enclosure, but the illustration suggests he would surely be blasted in the face by a torrent of wind, and would struggle to operate it. It’s a funny scene to ponder, but based on the accounts of the test flights we have, the craft never reached a sustained flight through propeller-power, so it’s unlikely to have taken place.

Close-up photo showing a reconstructed model of Félix du Temple’s monoplane design from the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace, near Paris.

Du Temple’s Monoplane seems to be a hybrid between a glider and an aircraft. It existed during a time when inventors were experimenting with self-powered flight, and it’s design would serve as inspiration for subsequent flying machines and aircraft design. The monoplane made it’s last public appearance at the 1878 World’s Fair in Paris.

Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.


[1]: Gibbs-Smith, Charles H. “Hops and Flights: A Roll Call of Early Powered Take-offs.” Flight, no. 75 (1959): 468.