Les Mureaux 3

Les Mureaux 3, developed by the French firm ANF Les Mureaux in the early 1920s, represented a pivotal step in the evolution of French military reconnaissance aircraft. Designed as a successor to the earlier Les Mureaux 2, it first flew in 1923 and entered limited service with the Armée de l'Air in 1925. The aircraft was a single‑engine, two‑seat sesquiplane with a wooden frame covered in fabric, powered by a 450‑hp Hispano‑Suiza V‑12, which gave it a top speed of 210 km/h and a service ceiling of 7,500 meters. Its most distinctive feature was the fully glazed forward cockpit, offering unobstructed visibility for observation and photography, while the rear seat housed a flexible machine gun for defensive fire. The Les Mureaux 3 also incorporated innovative wing‑folding mechanisms to ease storage on cramped naval carriers, a rare capability for French designs of the period. Although production numbers remained low—only 28 units were built—the aircraft proved reliable in colonial policing operations and reconnaissance flights over North Africa, influencing later French reconnaissance types such as the Bernard 260. The Les Mureaux 3 thus holds an important place as a bridge between World War I biplanes and the more modern monoplanes that defined aviation.