Schreck

   Louis Schreck had been a Wright pilot. Before he became famous as a builder of flyingboats, some of which were still in service at the start of World War II, Louis Schreck began his own design work in 1911 with a strange machine which actually flew.

   Diapason I: It resembled a baby carriage, the curved handles of which supported the front elevator; the covered frame was set on 4 wheels, and the wings swept back in wide curves, resembling a tuning-fork - hence the name Diapason. Small round-topped rudders were set above the trailing wingtips, with elevators hinged to the ends. The engine was in the nose and through a long shaft drove a pusher propeller at the rear of the fuselage.

   (Span: 12 m; length: 14 m; wing area: 32 sqm; weight: 400 kg; 50 hp Gnome)
  
   It was also photographed with a 50 hp water-cooled Chenu, the fuselage left uncovered: this version may have been an earlier one.

   Diapason II: In this version, also Gnome-powered, small trapezoidal rudders were set above and below the wingtips, with small control surfaces hinged to the tips themselves. One of the Diapasons was to have been fitted with a "retractable amphibian undercarriage," apparently in 1911-12.

   In 1912 Schreck turned to more conventional designs. He bought Tellier's patents from the Chantiers Alphonse Tellier when Tellier left his firm to work on his own. Schreck formed the Anciens Ateliers Tellier with Gaudard as chief designer. In the meantime Denhaut had also been designing flyingboats, and he merged with Donnet, Leveque, and Conneau to form Donnet-Leveque; he subsequently left Donnet-Leveque and worked first with Borel and then Goupy. Leveque then left Donnet-Leveque to build his own flyingboats; and the remains of the Donnet-Leveque firm merged with Schreck's Chantiers d'Artois to form FBA (Franco-British Aviation) with Schreck as director. Some wartime FBA flyingboats are described as Schrecks.