SAN MASCARET MODEL

On display in the LAA Members Lounge at Turweston is this lovely model of a Jodel D.150 Mascaret, built by the Société Aéronautique Normande (SAN) at Bernay, as part of its sales programme for the type in the 1960s.

SAN was started in 1948 by Lucien Querey, a glider pilot and aeromodeller and his idea was to run an Aviation Service Station similar to a motor-vehicle garage. In 1952 he began working with Jean Delemontez to build his Jodel designs.

Following Lucien’s death, the company was run by his wife and she commissioned Delemontez to create two exclusive designs for the factory to build; the four/five-seat D.140 Mousquetaire and the two-seat Mascaret.

Delemontez based the new design on his four-seat Jodel

Ambassadeur (also being built by SAN), with a reduced span wing and shorter fuselage. A swept fin and rudder and all-moving tailplane were other distinguishing features. Sixty-one D.150s were completed between 1963 and 1969, when SAN ceased operating. Since then, around 100 have been built around the world by home-builders from drawings initiated in France by SAB of Beaune and in Australia by Frank Rogers.

This model was presented by the factory to long-standing UK Jodel expert Ernie Horsfall who, in turn, passed it on to the LAA. Ernie remains an acknowledged authority on the type and although he stood down as an LAA Inspector in 2021, he remains actively involved with the flying community as he heads, next month, to his 104 birthday. Happy birthday Ernie! Steve Slater