Single engine two-seat experimental aircraft

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     Lieutenant Georges Nélis, who was in charge of the Calais - Le Beau Marais (France) maintenance & repair centre of the Aviation Militaire Belge during World War I started experimenting with refined versions of the Farman pusher aircraft as early as 1916. As no official documents are available on the different types of GN aircraft produced most available information comes from detailed study of quite a number of pictures which remain. Most of the design work was produced by engineer Demonty and in general the aircraft can be split in two groups according to the power plant. Two aircraft were powered by a Le Rhone rotary type of engine while 4 others had powerful Hispano Suiza 220 hp water cooled engines. All the designs had the Farman's original undercarriage replaced by a simpler and lighter design while the crew nacelles were in many cases more streamlined than the original design. The successful crew Jacquet-Rolin used the Gnome-Rhône powered GN 2 for many of their missions, while the excellent observer/photo duo Wouters Jaumotte used the Hispano Suiza powered GN 5 which was equipped with a frontal radiator.  (Daniel Brackx)