L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
It is difficult to trace the work of Charles Guillebaud, since his name was spelled in various ways from 1908 to 1912 in journals and on postcards: Guilbaud, Gillebaud, Guilbeau, or even Guisbaud. And he worked in Rouen as well as Le Havre, along the Seine; moreover, the published descriptions of his machines were generally highly whimsical! But all these names were probably the same man, and the machines the same machine.
Guillebaud's single tandem monoplane was called Armorique, after the ancient name for Brittany; it was designed in 1908 and probably tested as late as 1910. The designer meant to build an amphibian which would descend slowly and safely in case of engine failure: built of "artificial bamboo," the machine was very light. The 2 wings were separated only by their own chord's width, each with significant dihedral rising from the keel of the triangular hull and then curving gracefully downward at the ends. A long tail-boom carried the tail, a long tapered cruciform box open at the back end. The tractor propeller was set at the tip of the pointed nose; the machine stood poised on 4 small wheels.
(Length: 13 m; gross weight: 220 kg; 11 hp motor)
Guillebaud later founded a flying school in Rouen; it is reported that early in September 1910 he managed to fly 10 m before crashing in an aeroplane powered by a 25 hp Anzani - probably not the Armorique but a Caudron. In 1911 he claimed to be designing an all-metal machine "to be outstandingly quick," with a lifting surface of 30 sqm, but nothing further was heard of it, or of Guillebaud.