Ruchonnet

   A Swiss citizen, Ruchonnet was one of the earliest pilots when he purchased the Antoinette VIII; he went on to work with Voisin and then Hanriot, before starting his own firm in 1910. At La Vidamee he founded a flying school and did his design work: he built at least 2 monoplanes and perhaps 4.
   His Cigare is mentioned for the first time in July 1911, a slender monoplane with long narrow tapered cylindrical fuselage made of thin strips of citron wood rolled over a mold. In September it was described as modified: "lighter and more gracious," with the 60 hp Verdet rotary mounted in front outside the fuselage. The wings were rectangular, almost flat in section with slightly cambered leading edges, braced through a tall 4-legged pylon. A large cylindrical fuel tank was strapped in front of the pilot as a windshield. The undercarriage was made of wood and steel struts, high and narrow, attached to a short horizontal bar under the fuselage, and fitted with 2 short skids. The strut arrangement varied in different photographs. On 12 January 1912 Ruchonnet was killed in a dramatic crash in his new monoplane, leaving behind a pregnant wife.
   On 30 April 1913 the Swiss pilot C Schemmel took off from Paris in an attempt to fly to Russia and win the Coupe Pommery; unfortunately he was forced to land near Cologne in Germany. His monoplane was reported as a Ruchonnet-Schemmel, similar to the Ruchonnet but with narrower undercarriage and a lozenge-sectioned fuselage cowled in front over the motor. The rudder had been replaced with a Bleriot-like unit.
   In 1914 Schemmel registered in the Monaco competition, again with a Ruchonnet-Schemmel, probably the same machine but now fitted with a 100 hp Gnome. A rare photograph of poor quality shows the Cigare in front of another monoplane, similar to a Bleriot with shorter wings, and a 3-cylinder Anzani. The undercarriage resembles that of the Cigare; the machine may have been a Bleriot modified by Ruchonnet. Sometimes these machines were described as Schemmels: one had a diamond-section fuselage.