Bréguet 16
Bréguet · France · first flew 1918 · bomber
The Breguet 16 was a bomber biplane produced in France toward the end of the First World War.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | Mid-mounted, straight |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 1 × piston, nose-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | 9.55 m fuselage |
| T — Tail | Conventional |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- Two-bay, unstaggered, equal-span biplane wings
- Single Renault 12Fe engine in the nose
- Conventionally configured, scaled-up Breguet 14 layout
A large single-engined two-bay biplane with unstaggered, equal-span wings, 9.55 m long on a 16.96 m span.
Specifications
- The Bréguet 16 has a length of 9.55 m (31 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 16.96 m (56 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 160 km/h (99 mph).
- Typical crew: 2.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
The design was essentially a scaled-up version of Breguet's highly successful 14, a conventionally configured biplane with two-bay, unstaggered, equal-span wings. It first flew on 1 June 1918, and mass production by several French manufacturers under licence was planned for 1919. Those plans were discarded at the Armistice, but more limited production was revived in the early 1920s as the French Air Force began a programme of modernisation.
Variants
The Bre.16Bn.2 was the night bomber version. It carried a crew of two, a pilot and an observer, and was powered by a 300 hp Renault 12Fe.
Where you'll see it
About 200 were built. The Bre.16Bn.2 replaced obsolete twin-engine Farman F.50s in the night bomber role, some were deployed to Syria and Morocco, and Breguet also sold some to China and Czechoslovakia. A single aircraft was acquired by the Portuguese Air Force in 1924 for the Lisbon-Macau Raid, which failed when it was destroyed in a forced landing in India.
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