The Morane- Saulnier fighter was a competitive, if flawed, machine when it first appeared
The MS406 could trace its lineage back to 1934, when Morane-Saulnier designer Paul-René Gauthier created a cantilevered low-wing monoplane interceptor at the company’s Puteaux plant to fulfil a specification issued to the French aircraft industry by the Service Technique de l’Aéronautique (STAé) for a single-seat fighter. The machine had to be armed with either one or two 20mm cannon and be capable of achieving a speed of 280mph (450km/h) at an altitude of 13,125ft (4,000m).
The STAé specification generated quite a response from the French aircraft industry, and no fewer than five designs were selected to progress to prototype stage — the Bloch MB150, the Dewoitine D513, the Loire 250, the Morane-Saulnier MS405 and the Nieuport Ni160. Three of the five designs, including the MS405, proposed the use of the 860hp liquid-cooled Hispano-Suiza 12Y engine with a single enginemounted 20mm cannon and two wing-mounted 7.5mm machine guns.
Considered an interim fighter until more advanced types came off the drawing boards, the MS405 was built around the Hispano-Suiza 12Ygrs 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engine, which produced 8…
