Breguet Taon

The Breguet Taon was a French experimental aircraft developed by Breguet Aviation in the early 1930s. Conceived as a high‑speed, low‑drag monoplane for the 1934 Coupe Michelin contest, the Taon (French for “goshawk”) embodied the company’s pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency. Its most distinctive feature was the sharply tapered, cantilever wing with a thin, laminar‑flow airfoil, coupled with an all‑metal stressed‑skin fuselage that reduced weight while maintaining structural integrity. Powered by a 500 hp Hispano‑Suiza 12Y liquid‑cooled V12 engine, the Taon could reach speeds exceeding 350 km/h (217 mph), a remarkable performance for its class at the time. Although the aircraft never entered production, it served as a valuable testbed for Breguet’s later designs, influencing the development of the successful Breguet 690 series and contributing to advances in high‑speed aerodynamics and cantilever wing construction. The Taon’s brief competitive career, highlighted by a third‑place finish in the 1934 race, demonstrated the potential of streamlined metal airframes and helped cement Breguet Aviation’s reputation as an innovator in interwar French aviation. A single prototype survives today, displayed at the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Le Bourget, where it continues to inspire engineers and enthusiasts with its forward‑thinking design.

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