Production of Nieuport 11's was handled by Societe Anonyme des Etablissements Nieuport with first deliveries beginning in 1915. The type was fielded operationally for the first time on January 5th, 1916 and utilized in a frontline role until the summer of 1917 before given up for better, modern types.
Upon its introduction, the Nieuport 11's biplane wing design (generating more lift at the expense of increased drag) allowed Allied pilots to easily outmaneuver their German Fokker Eindekker monoplane contemporaries thanks, in part, to the utilization of ailerons in the design (as opposed to the rather utilitarian "wing-warping" action fielded by German Eindeckers). Additional benefits of the Nieuport 11 design lay in its excellent inherent speed, rate-of-climb and agility for the period. If the Nieuport 11 had but one limitation, it was in its lack of a synchronized machine gun system which limited armament. The placement of the machine gun along the upper wing forced a special reloading process to be worked, an operation that took the aircraft and pilot out of the fight for dangerously long periods of time. It should also be noted that the Nieuport 11 held a propensity for the wing assembly to buckle violently in high-speed flight, leading to fractures or outright break ups (mainly due to the single-bay, V-strut nature of the design). As such, it often took an experienced pilot to overcome these drawbacks and eventually make a name for himself while flying the Nieuport 11. Several names did, in fact, earn the status of "Ace" after having flown Nieuport 11s during portions of their career - names such as Ball, Baracca, Bishop, Navarre and Nungesser.
Italy produced the Nieuport 11 under license in 646 examples as the "Nieuport 1100". Sources suggest that local production occurred in Russia, Spain and the Netherlands as well. Such production and reproduction of Nieuport 11s proved - both directly and indirectly - the excellence of the Gustave Delage design.
The Bebe was officially retired from front-line service sometime in the summer of 1917 with the last Bebe squadrons being fielded in Italy. During its reign, the Bebe was largely responsible for a change in tactics on the part of the Germans - particularly during the pivotal Battle of Verdun (1916) where the "Baby" inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. As such, the value of the Nieuport 11 system to the Allied cause could not be overstated.
Back in 1916, Nieuport also unveiled the "Nieuport 16" in an attempt to modernize and improve the Nieuport 11 design for the changing requirements of war. The Nieuport 16 fielded a Le Rhone 9J rotary engine of 110 horsepower in a revised cowling. The attempt was more or less abandoned when the designed proved too "front-heavy". This initiative, however, led to the direct development of the "Nieuport 17" which went on to replace the Nieuport 11 beginning in March of 1916 and, itself, would become one of the most famous warplanes of World War 1.
Despite its relatively short career in the air, production of Nieuport 11s totaled approximately 7,200 Bebes which was an impressive number when accepted in the scope of World War 1 fighter production.
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