In December 1914 the famous French
aviator Roland Garros, then serving with
Escadrille 23, worked with
Raymond Saulnier to create a
gun synchronizer, using the gas operated
Hotchkiss light machine gun. However the firing rate fluctuated too much for the synchronizer to function properly. As an interim measure, they then designed a "safety backup" in the form of braced "deflectors" (metal wedges) fitted to the rear surfaces of the propeller blades at the points where they could be struck by a bullet. with a further 25 being operated by the
Royal Naval Air Service. On 7 June 1915 one of these aircraft, flown by
Flight Sub-Lieutenant Reginald Alexander John Warneford of
1 Squadron RNAS intercepted the
Deutsches Heer-flown
Zeppelin LZ.37, destroying it, the first Zeppelin to be destroyed in the air. Warneford received the
Victoria Cross for this achievement.
Cecil Lewis served with the RFC's Squadron Number 3 in 1916 through the
Somme offensive. He flew the Type LA "Parasol" (as it was known) operationally, for over three hundred hours and was awarded the Military Cross. Most of that flying was conducted on a single airframe, RFC serial 5133. In his book "Sagittarius Rising" he recalled of the LA: :"I had a look over her, and the more I saw of her the less I liked her. It was certainly not love at first sight . . . the elevator was as sensitive as a gold balance; the least movement stood you on your head or on your tail. You couldn't leave the machine to its own devices for a moment . . . the Morane really was a death trap . . . Subsequently I flew every machine used by the Air Force during the war. They were all child's play after the Morane . . . but I did come to love the Morane as I loved no other aeroplane." A Morane-Saulnier "Parasol" was used for the first flight by an airplane across the
Andes on April 13, 1918, when the Argentine aviator
Luis Candelaria flew from
Zapala, Argentina, to
Cunco, Chile; the flight lasted 2 hours 30 minutes and reached an altitude of 4,000 meters. ==Variants==