Bathiat-Sanchez

In 1909 José Luis Sánchez Besa and Emilio Edwards Bello became the first aviators in Chile when they took off in a Voisin aircraft. Both went to France where Sánchez Besa met Léon Bathiat and the latter two produced a number of aircraft. The fourth machine from this combination was introduced at the end of the spring of 1913 and was developed directly from the third Sanchez-Besa, but with equal-span wings, a rudder extension above the elevators, and tail-booms joined at the tail. The floats were large and flat and turned up at the nose. A rotary engine was mounted at the rear of the nacelle and through a chain drove a pusher propeller. Rugere tested it on the Seine, apparently with little success, since a few months later the firm produced a new seaplane for the Paris-Deauville race and the meet at Deauville at the end of August 1913. But this machine was nothing more than the 1912 Voisin military biplane pusher fitted with a large flat pontoon float and wing-tip floats: it was known as the "13.5 meters" and became the Type L.

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