Let Let Let – Warplanes

Nord 1400/1401/1402 Noroit

When after the war the Société Nationale de Construction de Nord or S.N.C.A.N. took over the Bréguet factory at Le Havre and the former CAMS flying boat plant at Sartrouville this company had the most expertise in flying boat design and construction. When the operational Do-24 and Catalina flying boats had to be replaced, Nord was a logical choice as a company to design and build a successor. This successor owed much of its design to the earlier Potez-CAMS 141 flying boat, although it was fitted with only two engines. The new Nord flying boat was designated as the Nord 1400 and named Noroit. The hull was very similar to the one of the Potez-CAMS 141, while the wings showed an inverted gull layout with fixed wing-floats. Further, it had a characteristic high-placed tails with triple fins. The first Nord 1400, carrying the civil registration F-WFDL, made its first flight on 16 January 1949 fitted with two Gnome-Rhone 14R25 radial air-cooled engines of 1600 hp each.. The second prototype, designated as the Nord 1401, was made as an amphibian with retractable main wheels and a tail wheel. It made its first flight on 6 April1949 fitted with two Bristol Hercules 100 engines of 1540 hp each, carrying the civil registration F-WFKU. The third prototype was also an amphibian fitted with two Arsenal 12H liquid-cooled engines. This engine was in fact a Junkers Jumo 213A engine, complete with its characteristic annular cooler as used earlier on German types like the FW-190D. The final fourth amphibian prototype , the Nord 1402 F-WFRP, was also fitted with this engine as were the production models. Strangely enough, the fifth prototype, the Nord 1402.02, was fitted for unexplained reasons with Bristol Hercules engines again! In total a further 20 production models Nord 1402 were built and delivered to the Aeronavale. Production was completed in 1953 and the aircraft served at Escadrille 5F, but only for a short time. The operational use was quite troublesome because the main wheel undercarriage added so much extra weight that performances were impaired. Because the wheels were made of a magnesium alloy, they suffered from corrosion by seawater and because of this amphibian operations were stopped. At a later stage, the wheel undercarriage was even removed from all machines! After one of the Noroits crashed it was soon withdrawn from operational status and all but one were scrapped. The surviving Noroit was stored St. Rafael naval airbase until December 1954 when a flood-wave caused by a broken dam took it to a parking lot many kilometres away! It was so damaged that it was also scrapped. The lucky part of this story is that during its involuntary last trip two people managed to hold themselves on the wing-float struts and escaped drowning!

Technical details (1402 production model):

Power plants: two Arsenal 12H liquid-cooled inverted Vee of 2070 hp each
Dimensions: wingspan 31.60 m
length 22.04 m
height 6.85 m
wing area 100 m2
Weights: empty 14 257 kg
all-up loaded 20 841 kg
Performances: max. speed 370 km/h at 2650 m
range 2500 km
service ceiling -
Equipment: six 20 mm canons; two in the nose, two in a tail turret and one each at side fuselage positions. a weapon bay for bombs and depth charges was housed in the engine nacelles.

SCAN 30

After the construction of the SCAN 20 was terminated, this small firm introduced for both civil and governmental use an all-metal small amphibian flying boat as the SCAN 30. The SCAN 30 had a very close resemblance to the US Grumman Widgeon. This was not by accident, but purposely since SCAN had acquired the licence construction rights for this American type for production in their La Rochelle plant. The SCAN 30 was offered with various type of engines as demanded by the customer. The SCAN 30 prototype F-WFDM made its maiden flight on 14 May 1953 fitted with Gipsy Queen II engines. In total SCAN manufactured a batch of 41 of this versatile small amphibian. They were delivered to various world-wide customers but most of these were in fact directly exported to the United States. It is possible that some of them are still flying around, most likely as a ‘Grumman Widgeon’.

The following SCAN 30′s were built:

c/n 01 F-WFDM (prototype) c/n 14 N58LM c/n 28 N2812D
c/n 1 F-WFHA c/n 15 N60LM c/n 29 N2813D
c/n 2 F-WFHB c/n 16 N7912C c/n 30 N2814D
c/n 3 F-WFHC c/n 17 no trace c/n 31 N7921C
c/n 4 F-WFHD c/n 18 no trace c/n 32 N7916C
c/n 5 F-WFHE c/n 19 F-BGTD c/n 33 N4451
c/n 6 F-BFHF c/n 20 N7917C c/n 34 N4452
c/n 7 F-BFHG c/n 21 N7775C c/n 35 N4120A
c/n 8 F-BFHH c/n 22 unknown (to USA) c/n 36 F-OABR
c/n 9 N62G c/n 23 unknown (to USA) c/n 37 unknown (to USA)
c/n 10 N3923 c/n 24 unknown (to USA) c/n 38 F-OALL
c/n 11 N7918C c/n 25 N7913C c/n 39 F-OALM
c/n 12 N7911C c/n 26 N2810D c/n 40 F-OALN
c/n 13 N3924 c/n 27 N2811D c/n 41 N4122A

After production of the SCAN 30 was terminated, the company was not further involved in aircraft construction, but in the construction of boats. Even in 1976 two flying boat airframes were auctioned by SCAN as scrap and most likely these were SCAN 30′s and they could have been the never-sold c/n 17 and c/n 18!

Technical details:

Power plants: two Salmson 8AS-00 of 240 hp or
two Lycoming R-860 E of 300 hp or
two Gipsy Queen II of 200 hp or
two Lycoming GO-435-C2 of 260 hp
Dimensions: wingspan 13.15 m
length 9.52 m
height 3.77 m
wing area 22.3 m2
Weights: empty 1600 kg
all-up loaded 2350-2495 kg depending on version
Performances: max. speed 304 km/h at sea level
range 750 km
service ceiling 2450 m
Equipment: capacity for one pilot and three passengers

Literature:

-Anonymous, Henry Potez 1911-1961, Special edition (English) Aviation magazine de l’Espace, No. 320 (1961)
-Chillon, J.; Dubois, J.P. and Wegg, J., French post-war transport aircraft, Air Britain-UK (1980)
-Cuny, Jean, Latécoère -Les avions et hydravions, Docavia no. 34, Editions Larivière, Paris-France (1992)
-Gaillard, Pierre, Les avions de transport civil français. Mini Docavia no. 3, Editions Larivière, France (1997)
-Gaillard. Pierre, Les prototypes de transport civils français, Mini Docavia no. 8, Editions Larivière, France (1997)
-Green, William, Flying boats -War planes of the second world war volume 5, Macdonald-London, UK (1962)
Hratmann Gérard, Lioré et Olivier-un grand constructeur aéronautique, E-T-A-I, France (2002)
-Oliver, David, Flying boats and amphibians since 1945, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, U.S.A. (1987, 1995)
-Munson, Kenneth, Flying boats and seaplanes, since 1910, Blandford Press-London, UK(1971)
-Steenderen, C.v., Moderne vliegtuigen, J.J. Meulenhof-Amsterdam, the Netherlands (1937)
-Stroud, John, The world’s civil marine aircraft, The Boldley Head Ltd., UK (1975)

Links:

http://frenchnavy.free.fr/menus/menu_seaplanes.htm

http://www.aviafrance.com

http://www.hydroretro.net/retro/index.php3?lang=en

Post-Scriptum:

This overview of French flying boats is not intended to be a complete history of ALL French flying boats ever built! In fact, dozens of types manufactures by various French companies are not mentioned. However, the most important and in particular the most spectacular French types as described! In general we can only conclude that all types of flying boats and amphibians built in France we far from commercially successful and were mostly built in very small numbers! It is ironic that the last flying boat in service of the French navy was an American type; the Martin Marlin! It is even more ironic that this American type replaced a British type: the Short Sunderland.

Nico Braas

Related posts:

1. Dutch flying boats and amphibians
2. German flying boats Part 1: 1914-1935
3. German flying boats Part 2: 1935-2000
4. Vanneau history
5. Dornier Do-28 amphibian for the MLD

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