French flying boats and amphibians

Nico — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:57:55 +0000

This article gives an overview of the most important and significant flying boats and amphibians developed and built by the French aircraft industry. In fact France more or less ‘invented’ the flying boat with the Fabre Hydravion which was flown for the first time on 28 March 1910 from the harbour of Marseille. Pilot on this historic event was Henri Fabre himself, although he had no flight experience at all! However, Fabre’s Hydravion was nothing more than a very flimsy construction without any practical use, although it was in our eyes quite ‘modern’ with its canard layout!

The historical flight of Henri Fabre on 28 March 1910 is here shown on a picture postcard

Development went fast, and already two years later we see an operational flying boat in the form of the Donnet-Lévéque. Showing a wooden hull and high-placed wings and engine, and being the first practical flying boat for military use, it shows the shapes of things to come! The type was later further developed by Louis Schreck with his FBA flying boats, which were built and used in considerable numbers by various countries before and during the First World War.

The Donnet-Lévéque flying boat as presently exhibited in the Musée de l\'Air at Le Bourget, France

Finally the small single seat scout flying boats would evolve into the big multi-engined ‘flying mailboats’- or ‘paquebots volantes’ as the French call them – from the post WW II period as we will see in this historical overview!

Latham 45

Latham designed and built at their Caudebec-en-Caux plant in the mid-twenties a 3-seat seaplane bomber as the Latham 45. It was a biplane with a light-alloy hull and wooden wings. The two engines were placed in tandem in a nacelle in the centre of the upper wing, driving two-bladed tractor and pusher propellers. The Latham 45 was in August 1927 flown to an air-show in Copenhagen, making an intermediate stop at Rotterdam harbour. However, no orders were placed and only one single machine was built. It was acquired by the French navy and served for a short period at Cherbourg maritime centre.

Rare picture of the Latham 45 at Rotterdam harbour en route to an air-show near Copenhagen in Denmark in 1927

Technical details:
Power plants: two Gnome-Rhone 9Aa nine-cylinder radial engines of 380 hp each
Dimensions: wingspan 23.50 m
length -
height -
wing area 120 m2
Weights: empty 3200 kg
all-up loaded 5100 kg
Performances: max. speed 170 km/h
range 800 km
service ceiling 4600 m
Equipment: accommodation for a crew of three

Let Let Let - Warplanes » Marlin

French flying boats and amphibians