ORIGINAL: JohnnyS
1. On its attempted first flight, it was not able to take off. .
2. It was flown by the Poles, Greeks, Romanians, Luftwaffe, the Vichy regime and by the Free French.
The Bloch MB.150? Thanks; Ernie P.
The Bloch MB.150 was a French low-wing, all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft with retractable landing gear and enclosed cockpit developed by Société des Avions Marcel Bloch as a contender in the 1934 French air ministry competition for a new fighter design.
Although the competition was won by the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 prototype, development proceeded culminating in the first attempted flight of the MB.150.01 prototype in 1936. Unfortunately, the aircraft proved unable to leave the ground. With modifications consisting of a strengthened wing of greater area, revised landing gear, and installation of a 701 kW (940 hp) Gnome-Rhone 14N-0 radial engine with a three-blade constant speed propeller, the MB.150 finally flew in October 1937.
MB.151s and MB.152s equipped nine Groupes de Chasse (fighter groups) during the Battle of France, but they were largely outmatched by the faster Messerschmitt Bf 109E. Six groupes continued to fly in the Vichy French Air Force until this was disbanded on 1 December 1942, the aircraft being passed over to the Royal Romanian Air Force by the Germans.
Though the Greek government had ordered 25 MB.151s, actually only nine of these were exported to Greece. They flew with the 24th Moira Dioxis (Fighter Squadron) of the Hellenic Royal Air Force in Elefsina against the Italians and Germans, scoring several air-to-air victories until 19 April 1941, when the last MB.151 was shot down.
During World War II, the Bloch MB.152 had destroyed at least 188 enemy aircraft, and lost about 86 of their own. They proved tough aircraft, able to stand considerable battle damage, and a good gunnery platform,[2] but with many problems: poor agility, poor weapon reliability, poor range (600 km, but here the Bf 109E was only slightly better, around 660 km), and were notably underpowered.
In 1944, several surviving MB.152s were liberated at an airfield in mid-southern France. After being flight-tested and evaluated, and painting out the balkenkreuzen and swastikas, they were fitted with more powerful American engines and went up against the last remnants of the Luftwaffe with the Free French.