Nieuport 1875–1911: A Biography of Edouard Nieuport
by Gérard Pommier & Bertrand Pommier
“Very pale, he started explaining what had happened: wanting to make a descent with a stalled propeller, he had cut off the power. But, forgetting that he had a Gnome engine, he had failed to stop the flow of gasoline which, since there was no carburetion device, went directly into the crankshaft of the rotary engine, flooding it as he came down. Thus he could not restart the engine for the landing.
While he was telling us all this, his expression suddenly changed dramatically: ‘I am bleeding in my stomach,’ he said.’”
Édouard Nieuport died then and there, on the field, 36 years old, his liver ruptured by hitting a makeshift wooden board he had rigged up in the cockpit to better hold a map. And just when his future had become secure, thanks to an investment by “the most enlightened and generous patron of the period,” petroleum magnate Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, that would rid Société Anonyme Des Établissements Nieuport of “all financial burdens.”
What an epic story this is, what an epic read this will be. It is the one, but not the other. This remark is not meant to whine about what the book is or isn’t but simply to manage expectations.
In short, vexed, that’s what we are. Seeing this book listed as “new” in the publisher’s current catalog got our attention because over 20 years ago we had considered reviewing a book by that very title but then decided not to because it just really wasn’t the sort of expository and interpretative biography that was so sorely missing from the literature about this pivotal aviation pioneer.
Well, it is still missing because this “new” book is that old 2002 publication, unchanged. What tricked us into accepting the claim to newness was the way the author was listed. The old book had been credited to Gérard and Bertrand Pommier, Édouard Deniéport [1] aka Édouard Nieuport’s (1875–1911) grandsons who in 2004 had their name on a much more useful book that was only available in French but 160 pages longer, Les frères Nieuport et leurs avions (L’officine, ISBN 9782914614566). The new book only lists Gérard P. on the cover. On the cover of the dust jacket that is; the book cover (see bottom photo) and the title page and the CIP page say . . . “by Gérard Pommier & Bertrand Pommier.”
Even so, this book does advance or at least enrich the body of knowledge in that it reproduces a great deal of primary sources in the form of previously unpublished photos and family papers, just the sort of thing to which a family member like Pommier would have unfettered access. Many of these items, also newspaper clippings and the like, are shown at a quite small size, too small to be wholly legible.
The pages above are a translation of the original document shown on the pages below; it is a rare technical document detailing how various components of the aircraft need to be aligned relative to each other, mostly achieved by cable tension and strut and spar adjustment.
At least some of the documents have their contents summarized in the captions, and in English. Some, such as letters, are often translated in toto. Considering how prominently French pioneers figure in the history of early aviation it is probably not unreasonable to assume readers will be able to handle French well enough to decipher newspaper clippings and the like; the two Appendices make up a good quarter of the book and contain two French-only documents, a catalog of airplanes and an article on the principles of dogfight tactics.
There are no Index, Notes, Bibliography etc. to facilitate further study, nor an Introduction to set forth context and introduce the author/s. From biographical minutia to airplane technology to operating guidelines, the book breezes through a lot of things and explores none: the expert reader will be able to fill in the blanks, the newbie reader won’t even know where next to turn.
Nieuport used his cycling and also sailing experience to understand how wind exerted force on an airplane wing.
Little is said about Édouard Nieuport’s brother Charles, described as a “close collaborator.” He was a reluctant aviator, becoming a pilot only after his brother’s crash in order to carry on their work. Both died young, in flying accidents in 1911 and in 1913 so considering that they founded their company only in 1909, they accomplished a lot in terms of technical innovation and their company outlived them, its designs licensed for production worldwide.
So, until someone writes a full-fledged deep-dive Nieuport biography, this one will at least give you a taste, and it certainly time-travels back farther (to 1795) than your basic encyclopedia entry. Just by the way, the year this book was published, the National Air and Space Museum was gifted a small cache of Pommier material.
It does bear repeating that, to their eternal credit, this publisher keeps books in print uncommonly long. This one has the lovely marbled endpapers that graces so many Schiffer books, and all the pages are the same glossy stock which means illustrations can be printed anywhere instead of having to be bundled into standalone sections. But someone really needs to update that catalog listing, not least because every book site on the internet repeats it.
[1] This is the spelling in the book and in the original documents reproduced, not de Niéport.
Copyright 2024, Sabu Advani (Speedreaders.info)
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