The Bleriot-SPAD S.33 was a small French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 airliner

Airliner

An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft for transporting passengers and cargo. Such aircraft are operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers in commercial...

 developed soon after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. A great success, the S.33 dominated its field throughout the 1920s, initially on CMA

Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes

Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes was a pioneering French airline which was in operation form 1919 - 23, when it was merged with Grands Express Aériens to form Air Union.-History:...

's Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

-London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 route, and later on continental

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 routes serviced by Franco-Roumaine. The aircraft was a biplane

Biplane

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...

 of conventional configuration whose design owed much to the Blériot company's then-recent fighter

Fighter aircraft

A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...

 designs such as the S.20. Four passengers could be accommodated in an enclosed cabin within the fuselage

Fuselage

The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage which in turn is used as a floating hull...

, and a fifth passenger could ride in the open cockpit

Cockpit

A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. Most modern cockpits are enclosed, except on some small aircraft, and cockpits on large airliners are also physically separated from the cabin...

 beside the pilot.

One interesting development was a sole example converted by CIDNA

CIDNA

CFRNA , later CIDNA CFRNA ("The French-Romanian Company for Air Transport"; Compagnie franco-roumaine de navigation aérienne in French; Compania franceză - română pentru navigaţia aeriană in Romanian), later CIDNA CFRNA ("The French-Romanian Company for Air Transport"; Compagnie franco-roumaine de...

 to act as a blind-flying trainer. A set of controls was installed inside the passenger cabin, the windows of which had been blacked out.

Variants

• S.33 -Single-engined passenger transport aircraft, powered by a 260-hp (194-kW) Salmson CM.9 radial piston engine. 41 aircraft built.
• S.46
  Blériot-SPAD S.46
  -See also:...
  
  - Improved version of the S.33, powered by a 370-hp (276-kW) Lorraine-Dietrich 12Da engine. 38 built and sold to the Franco-Roumaine Company.
• S.48 - A single S.33 temporarily re-engined in 1925
  1925 in aviation
  This is a list of aviation-related events from 1925:-Events:* In the United Kingdom, the first Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons are formed....
  
  , fitted with a 275-hp (205-kW) Lorraine engine.
• S.50 - Luxury version with passenger cabin enlarged to six seats, fitted with a 300-hp (224-kW) Hispano-Suiza 8Fb engine. Three were converted from S.33s, plus two all-new aircraft.

Operators

• Franco-Roumaine (20 aircraft)
• CMA
  Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes
  Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes was a pioneering French airline which was in operation form 1919 - 23, when it was merged with Grands Express Aériens to form Air Union.-History:...
  
   (15 aircraft)

• SNETA
  SNETA
  SNETA is a former Belgian airline which operated from 1919 to 1923 in order to pioneer commercial aviation in Belgium...
  
   (6 aircraft)

Specifications (S.33)

See also