Société de Constructions et d'Aviation Légère

Société Constructions d'Aviation Légère (SCAL) was a small French aircraft manufacturer of light aircraft during the 1930s and 1940s.

Société Constructions d'Aviation Légère (SCAL)
Typeaircraft design and manufacture
Industryaircraft
Fateceased operations
Founded1936
Defunctc. 1948
HeadquartersParis, France
Key people
Felix Bassou
Productslight aircraft

Company history

SCAL was established in 1936 by the founder Felix Bassou with a factory in Paris. Bassou's company designed and built a small series of light two-seat sporting and touring aircraft for use by private pilot owners. The last design appeared c. 1938 and the company is no longer existent.

Aircraft designs

The SCAL FB.30 was SCAL's first design, of which two were completed in 1936. This was a two-seater monoplane of wooden construction with a pusher engine and two open dual control cockpits arranged in tandem. The aircraft was of unusual layout with twin close-set booms carrying the tailplane upon which was set the tail fin. The FB.30 had an unconventional fixed tricycle undercarriage, but for storage, the aircraft could rest on the twin booms.[1][2] The first FB.30 remained in France. The second FB.30 was brought to the United Kingdom in September 1936[3] and sold to a British owner in June 1937. After a change of ownership,[4] it was destroyed in a fatal crash at Hanworth, Middlesex on 12 June 1938.[1] The FB.31 was a variant fitted with a 60 hp Salmson 9 ADr radial engine.[5] An example of the latter was registered as F-PFOL in late 1953 and participated in a 1954 air rally at Alencon from its base at Lyon.[6] It is believed to have been a rebuild of one of the prewar F.B.30s and was de-registered in 1977.[7]

Only limited details of the FB.30's construction and performance are available:[1] engine 40 h.p. Mengin flat twin fourstroke driving a pusher airscrew; span 30 ft 4 in; length 19 ft 8 in; empty weight 572 lbs; all-up weight 1,100 lbs; maximum speed 106 mph, cruise 93 mph.

The sole FB.41 Rubis at St Cyr l'Ecole airfield near Paris in 1957

The FB.41 Rubis was the second and last of SCAL's aircraft designs. It was built c. 1938 and was a small single-seat open cockpit biplane powered by a four-cylinder horizontally opposed engine. It had a fixed tailwheel undercarriage and a low-set tailplane. Between 1957 and 1962 it was owned by the Aero Club de Versailles and based at Saint-Cyr-l'École airfield to the west of Paris. No details of construction or performance are available. It no longer appeared on the French civil aircraft register by 1964.[8]

References
  1. Jackson, 1974, p.418
  2. Flight 15 October 1936 supplement
  3. "A Pusher comes to Town" Flight 24 September 1936 p.323
  4. CAA registration of G-AFCD
  5. Flight 26 November 1936 p.576
  6. F.B.31 F-PFOL at Alencon
  7. French civil register F-PFOL
  8. Butler, 1964, p.115

Bibliography
  • Butler, P.H. (1964). French Civil Aircraft Register. Merseyside Society of Aviation Enthusiasts.
  • Jackson, A.J. (1974). British Civil Aircraft since 1919, Volume 3. Putnam & Company Ltd. ISBN 0-370-10014-X.
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