Nieuport 10
1914 multi-role military aircraft by Nieuport
The Nieuport 10 (or Nieuport XB in contemporary sources) is a French First World War sesquiplane that filled a wide variety of roles, including reconnaissance, fighter and trainer.
Design and development
In January 1914, designer Gustave Delage joined the Société Anonyme des Etablissements Nieuport, and started working on a series of aircraft that would remain in production for the remainder of the First World War. The Nieuport 10 was the first of these and was originally designed to compete in the Gordon Bennett Trophy race of 1914. World War I caused this contest to be cancelled, and the type was developed as a military two-seat reconnaissance aircraft that entered service in 1915.
The type featured a distinctive "V" strut layout. The lower wing was much smaller in area than the upper wing. The concept was intended to combine the strength, compactness and stability of the biplane's wire braced wing cell with the speed and ease of handling of the monoplane.
Many were built or converted as single-seat fighters by covering the front cockpit, and adding a Lewis Gun or Vickers machine gun either to fire through the centre section of the top wing or mounted over it, firing forwards. In this form, the type was used as a fighter.
Two major types were developed based on experience with the Nieuport 10 - the Nieuport 11 Bébé - a smaller and completely new aircraft, designed from the outset as a single-seater, and the Nieuport 12 - a more powerful two-seater with an enlarged top wing and improved seating for the gunner.
“Nieuport 10” enters the record as 1914 multi-role military aircraft by Nieuport. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nieuport, multi-role and military can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q597034. The Library of Congress control number is sh2012003128. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914 and 1915.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nieuport 10” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.