In January 1939, the 26-year-old aircraft designer Max Holste began work at l'École de Réèducation Professionnelle, a Paris technical school for training the unemployed for work in the aviation industry, to design an all-metal single-engined racing aircraft.[1] The design, intended to compete in the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe air race,[2][3] was a mid-winged monoplane with a fixed tailwheel undercarriage. An enclosed cockpit was provided for the aircraft's pilot, situated behind the wing.[4] The planned power-plant was a Béarn vertically-opposed air-cooled twelve-cylinder engine.[5]
The airframe was effectively complete by June 1939, with only the engine awaited, with it being hoped that the aircraft would make its maiden flight by August 1939.[1] This did not occur, however, and the aircraft did not fly until 25 July 1941,[6] powered by a Régnier air-cooled inverted 12Hoo V12 engine.[7]
