Nieuport N11 3993

This is a profile of the Nieuport 3993 which was flown by Roderic Dallas when he claimed a Seaplane as destroyed four miles off Blankenberghe. 3993 had a checkered history after that, on the 20th it was sent to Chingford and was at Dover four days later. By the second of June 3993 returned to 1 Wing but was returned to Dunkerque depot again in December. The aircraft was later to serve with 3 Squadron RNAS and then 9 Squadron RNAS before being deleted in April 1917. The photograph is thought to have been taken near to the 20th of May, and the aircraft is depicted with twin Lewis guns on the upper wing.

Mike Fletcher of the The Nieuport Pages recently posted on the WWI mailing list the origins of the bebe's name :

"When Nieuport first built the 11, they needed to distinguish it from an unrelated single seat monoplane. To do this they referred to it as the B=XI (the B was for biplan - biplane). When the French took it on strength, it fell into their category B as a small single seat scout. This accidentally became BB=XI for a very short period of time before a new designation system came into force. This was the source of the term bebe (pronounced the same as bb en francaise). Morane Saulnier deliberately attempted to get the same moniker on a small two seater but it never caught on. The new system designated it as "Chasseur" (literally chaser) Thus it became the XI C.1 - the XI was supposed to be the 11th type of Nieuport received by the French military but it does not seem to hold here - perhaps the SFA only required that the types have numbers and not letters. The 1 signifies the number of crew members. This system initially had A (artilliare - artillery), B (bombeur), Bn (bombeur nuit - night bomber), C (chasseur), Ca (chasseur canon - cannon fighter) and E (ecole - school). Later letters were added as new categories were required. The very earliest 11's had a few minor differences but these disappeared fairly quickly, and the Italian machines seem to have had some differences of their own from the original. "