Design and Development
At the Pierre Levasseur Company in Paris, Nungesser and Coli, working closely with Chief Engineer Émile Farret and production manager Albert Longelot, assisted in the design of the new Levasseur PL.8 biplane. Based on the Levasseur PL.4 developed for the Aéronavale to operate from the French aircraft carrier Béarn, the PL.8 was a conventional, single-bay, wood and fabric-covered biplane that carried a crew of two in a side-by-side, open cockpit.
Major modifications included the reinforcement of the plywood fuselage, and removing two of the forward cockpits so the main cockpit could be widened to allow Nungesser and Coli to sit side-by-side. The wingspan was also increased to approximately 15 m (49 ft). Two additional fuel tanks were mounted aft of the firewall, meaning the PL.8's three fuel tanks held a total of 4,025 litres (1,056 gallons) of gasoline.
The PL.8 also incorporated several safety features in case of ditching at sea. Apart from small floats attached directly to the undersides of the lower wing, the main units of the fixed, tailskid undercarriage could be jettisoned on takeoff, in order to reduce the aircraft's weight. The underside of the fuselage was given a boat-like shape and made watertight for a water landing. Nungesser and Coli's plan was to make a water landing in New York, in front of the Statue of Liberty
A single W-12 Lorraine-Dietrich 340 kilowatts (460 hp) engine was used, with the cylinders set in three banks spaced 60° apart from one another, similar to the arrangement used in Napier engines. The engine was tested to ensure it would last the entire flight, and was run for over 40 hours while still in the Parisian factory.
The aircraft, christened L'Oiseau Blanc, was painted white, and had the French tricolor markings, with Nungesser's personal World War I flying ace logo: a skull and crossbones, candles and a coffin, on a black heart, painted on the fuselage. The biplane carried no radio and relied only on celestial navigation, a specialty of Coli from his previous flights around the Mediterranean.
In 1928, a second PL-8, and equipped with a Hispano-Suiza 12M, 375 kW (500 hp) engine, was built.
Read more about this topic: The White Bird
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