Nieuport 28 (N128CX)

Built by Robertson Wooldridge

By the middle of 1917 it was obvious that the Nieuport 17 was unable to cope with the latest German fighters, and that direct developments of the 17, such as the Nieuport 24bis. were unable to offer a substantially improved performance. In fact, the Nieuport was already being rapidly replaced in French service with the SPAD S.VII.

The Nieuport 28 design was an attempt to adapt the concept of the lightly built, highly maneuvrable rotary engined fighter typified by the 17 to the more demanding conditions of the times. It was designed to carry an up-to-date armament of twin synchronized machine guns, had a more powerful engine, and a new wing structure – for the first time a Nieuport biplane was fitted with conventional two spar wings, top and bottom, in place of the sesquiplane “v-strut” layout of earlier Nieuport types. The tail unit’s design closely followed that of the Nieuport 27, but the fuselage was much finer, in fact it was so narrow that the machine guns had to be offset to the left.
By early 1918, when the first production Nieuport 28s became available, the type was already “surplus” from the French point of view. The SPAD S.XIII was a superior aircraft in most respects, and was in any case firmly established as the standard French fighter.
On the other hand, the United States Army Air Service was desperately short of fighters to equip its projected “pursuit” (fighter) squadrons. The SPAD was initially unavailable due to a shortage of Hispano Suiza engines – and the Nieuport was offered to, and perforce accepted by, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), as an interim alternative. A total of 297 Nieuport 28s were purchased by the Americans, and they were used to equip the very first American fighter squadrons.