The CAMS 52 was a twin-engined

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

torpedo-bomber A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carrying the weight ...

. It was not ordered by the French Navy and only one CAMS 52 was completed. It first flew in the summer of 1930.

Design and development

The CAMS 52 was a

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

prototype. The proposed production version would have been the CAMS 60 and at least one early source refers to the prototype by this name. It was a large twin-engined

high wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

aircraft of mixed construction. Each half-wing was in two parts, with a centre-section which mounted the engine at its extremity and sweep-back on its

leading edge The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, ...

to improve the downward view from the cockpit. The centre-section was entirely

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

covered; since the wing thickened towards the engine, it carried significant anhedral. The outer wings had constant

chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

out to about two-thirds span and carried light dihedral. Beyond, the wing was straight-tapered to blunted tips. The whole trailing edge of each outer wing was occupied by narrow-chord

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

s, divided into three sections. These outer wings had a wooden structure, with two parallel box spars and I-section

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

s and were braced to the lower

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

by pairs of parallel struts from about two-thirds span, via the float. Their

s were ply-covered over the whole span but the rear surfaces were

dural Dural is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 36 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire and The Hills Shire. Dural is part of the Hills District. ...

skinned. The CAMS 52 was powered by two uncowled nine-cylinder radial

Gnome-Rhône 9Akx Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...

engines, their steel tube frames mounted on the wing underside from the forward spar and fixed to the rear spar with a cone of tubes. Two fuel tanks were contained in the wing centre-section with another of the same capacity under the forward pilot's seat. Below each engine three steel struts, two in an inverted V and one vertical, joined the float centreline. Another vertical strut joined the float to the rear spar and two more ran obliquely from the lower fuselage to the engine frames. The floats were long, with hard chine and a single step. They were

skinned and were subdivided internally into watertight compartments. Though the CAMS 52 was designed as a floatplane, it could be adapted to use wheeled

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

. Its fuselage had three sections; the all-metal central part was the major structural unit, taking wing and engine loads, and was joined to the others just beyond the leading and trailing wing edges. All were flat-sided and built on girders based on four steel tube

longeron In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...

s. The forward and central sections were mostly ply covered but the rear covering was entirely

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

. The single-curvature nose, semi-circular in plan, contained a position for the observer/bomb aimer and was equipped with twin Lewis guns on a flexible mount. Behind him there was a separate open viewing platform for the navigator/bomber, accessed from his windowed cabin below which contained a sighting compass and map table. Aft, the upper surface rose towards the wing leading edge, where there were separate

starboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are ...

-side tandem open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

s for two pilots. On the

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

-side, adjacent to the first pilot, was an observer's post. This central section of the fuselage held vertically mounted bombs and externally mounted torpedoes; details of the intended armament and bomb loads are given below. It also contained a sound-proofed cabin for the wireless operator. The third section, accessed via a port side door, contained dorsal and ventral gun positions, a flexible camera mounting and a hatch in the floor used during mooring. The CAMS 52 had a conventional, fabric covered tail, with a broad, near-triangular

fin A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fin ...

and a rectangular, wire-braced

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...

. The

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s and

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

, the latter reaching down to the keel, were narrow, straight-edged and

balanced In telecommunications and professional audio, a balanced line or balanced signal pair is a circuit consisting of two conductors of the same type, both of which have equal impedances along their lengths and equal impedances to ground and to other ...

. Both rudder and elevators had inflight-adjustible trimming surfaces along their entire trailing edges. The sole CAMS 52 was first flown in June 1930 from Sartrouville but the Navy did not choose it for production.

Variants

;CAMS 52: prototype, registered ''F-AKAH'' ;CAMS 60: production model. Production prototype registered ''F-AKAN'' but probably not built.

Specifications (CAMS 52)

CAMS_60_3-view_NACA_Aircraft_Circular_No

References

{{CAMS aircraft Floatplanes 1930s French bomber aircraft CAMS aircraft High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1930 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft