The Levasseur PL.2 was a French

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

torpedo bomber designed by Pierre Levasseur for the

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 ...

Design and development

The second design of Pierre Levasseur was the PL.2, a single-seat unequal-span biplane inspired by designs from

Blackburn Aircraft Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north- ...

. It had a fixed tailskid

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 ...

and was powered by a nose-mounted

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

engine. The first of two prototypes first flew in November 1922. The second aircraft had a four-bladed

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

and other powerplant improvements. Nine production aircraft were built in 1923, these were fitted with ballonets and jettisonable landing gear for operations at sea.Taylor and Alexander 1969, pp. 102-103.

Operational history

The aircraft entered service in 1926 aboard the French

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

Béarn The Béarn (; ; oc, Bearn or ''Biarn''; eu, Bearno or ''Biarno''; or ''Bearnia'') is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Bas ...

'' and continued in use until they were scrapped in 1932.

Variants

*PL 2 AT-01 : First torpedo-bomber prototype. *PL 2 AT-02 : Second prototype, equipped with a four-blade propeller. *PL.2 : Single-seat torpedo-bomber aircraft, nine built for the French Navy.

Operators

; *

Escadrille 7B2 A flight is a small military unit within the larger structure of an air force, naval air service, or army air corps; and is usually subservient of a larger squadron. A military aircraft flight is typically composed of four aircraft, though ...

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

*Taylor, John W. R. and Jean Alexander. ''Combat Aircraft of the World.'' New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969. . *Taylor, Michael J. H. ''Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation''. London: Studio Editions, 1989. . {{Levasseur aircraft Levasseur PL.02 Carrier-based aircraft Levasseur aircraft Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1922