Dewoitine

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 final end of Dewoitine as a recognisable entity was its absorption into SNCASE in December 1940, by which time Émile Dewoitine had departed to join SIPA, and no further aircraft were produced under the Dewoitine name.

References

• Gunston, Bill (1993). World Encyclopedia of Aircraft Manufacturers. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.