Akubra Is correct it is indeed the instrument panel of the Salmson 2A2.
The Salmson Motor Company founded in 1890 by Émile Salmson and based in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, was originally an automobile company. During the First World War, it built aircraft engines, generally 9- and later 18-cylinder water-cooled radial engines developed from the Swiss Canton-Unné design. The company's first entry into aircraft design came with the Salmson-Moineau S.M. 1, an unusual three-seat reconnaissance biplane with twin airscrews gear-driven from a single Salmson engine in the nose of the fuselage. These aircraft, of which 155 were built, were not especially successful.
The Salmson 2 developed from a requirement to replace the Sopwith 1˝ Strutter and Dorand A.R. reconnaissance aircraft in the A2 (tactical reconnaissance) role. Salmson had built the 1˝ Strutter under license, and the Salmson 2, while an original design, owed more to the Sopwith than to the earlier Salmson-Moineau. The aircraft was of conventional construction, powered by the company's own 9Z water-cooled radial engine of 230 bhp.
Japan undertook license production as the "Army Type Otsu 1", also known as the Kawasaki-Salmson. About 600 were built initially, half by Kawasaki, half by the Imperial Japanese Army's Tokorozawa supply depot. Further orders may have brought the total built in Japan to around a thousand.
My challenge photograph is of the instrument panel of a Japanese Salmson 2A2. Windriver. This is a French Drawing showing the instrument layout.
Canton offered an S2 biplane powered by two 230 hp Canton-Unné engines. The main armament was to be four Lewis machine guns, firing forwards and downwards; a fifth gun was provided to defend the rear. This aircraft was found totally unacceptable. The armour plate was relatively thin at 4 mm, but nevertheless the Canton aircraft struggled to get off the ground when fitted with it. According to test reports, it could not climb higher than about 30 m, probably barely out of ground effect.
Akubra you have control
