Single-engine single & two-seat aircraft

 

 

   Four Deperdussin and de Brouckère-Deperdussin aircraft of different types have at one time or another been used by the “Vliegerscompagnie/Compagnie d'Aviateurs”. In 1912/1913 both Comte Joseph d’Hespel and Henri Crombez fulfilled their compulsory military service with the Company d'Aviateurs together with their personally owned aircraft, in both cases de Brouckère-Deperdussin aircraft. Although the aircraft remained property of their owners, the army paid fuel cost and maintenance for these aircraft for the time of their “military service”.
With the general mobilisation in Belgium on July 31st, 1914 all flyable civil aircraft and their pilots were incorporated in the Compagnie d'Aviateurs. Crombez donated a twin seater de Brouckère-Deperdussin monoplane Type 1913 and (re)joined the forces with his Deperdussin monocoque single seater monoplane (acquired June 1913). Paul Hanciau, who was an instructor-pilot at the de Brouckère flying school of Genk, also joined the military with the de Brouckère-Deperdussin twin-seat monoplane T 1912 of the "Société des Aviateurs de Belgique" when it was requisitioned by the Gendarmerie at Sint-Agatha-Berchem on 31 July 1914. Most if not all of these aircraft were lost/withdrawn from use in the opening months of the First World War. (Daniel Brackx, Philippe Doppagne, Jan Lantmeeters)