The Latécoère 23 was a development of the

Latécoère 21 __NOTOC__ The Latécoère 21 was a French flying boat built in 1925 for use by Lignes Aériennes Latécoère as an airliner on routes between France and North Africa. It was the first of the Latécoère flying boats, and the first aircraft to de ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

, a twin-engined

parasol 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 wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

ed aircraft. Only one was built, flying and crashing in late 1927. The similar Latécoère 32 was its immediate successor.

Design and development

The Latécoère 23 was a development of the Latécoère 21, the latter Latécoère's first flying boat to leave the water. It kept the same general arrangement, a parasol winged machine with a centrally mounted push-pull pair of engines and

sponsons Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing. Watercraft On watercraft, a spons ...

for stability on the water. Its wing, like that of the earlier aircraft was very rectangular and of mixed wood and metal construction. The span was increased by 27% and the wing area by about the same. The sharply cropped wingtips of the Latécoère 21 were replaced by bevelled ends of decreasing thickness. The Latécoère 23 carried full span ailerons in three sections per wing, fitted with trim tabs. The wings were not attached directly to the fuselage, but to the sponsons: on each side a parallel pair of streamlined struts leaned outwards from near the tip of the sponson to mid-wing, and a second pair ran inwards to the wing centreline below the engines. On the Latécoère 21 the engines were mounted on the chord line, but the two 500 hp (373 kW)

Farman 12 We Farman Aviation Works () was a French aircraft company founded and run by the brothers Richard, Henri, and Maurice Farman. They designed and constructed aircraft and engines from 1908 until 1936; during the French nationalization and rationali ...

s of the later aircraft were mounted on the upper surface of the wing. Propellers were four bladed and wooden. The fuselage of the Latécoère 23 was 1.30 m (2 ft) shorter than that of its predecessor and the major hydrodynamic alteration was the inclusion of two steps rather than one. It was built of wood. The broad sponsons of airfoil section and almost rectangular plan were also mostly made of wood apart from four duralumin longerons. They were set at an appropriate angle of incidence to provide extra lift. There was a mooring position in the nose, an open cockpit for pilot and mechanic. Two internal cabins, one ahead of the cockpit and one aft could each accommodate four passengers. The tail unit of the Latécoère 23 was much cleaner than that of its predecessor, with control surfaces merging smoothly into the lines of tailplane and fin. The former was unbraced and mounted about halfway up the fin, with a large cut-out for rudder movement. Achille Enderlin, Latécoère's test pilot was in charge of trials during the autumn of 1927. These passed without incident, but on 31 December 1927, with Enderlin and four others on board spun in during landing approach, killing everyone. No more Latécoère 23s were built, but by the time of the crash the first examples of its rather similar successor, the Latécoère 32 were in service.

Specification

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Latecoere 23 1920s French civil aircraft Flying boats 23 Twin-engined push-pull aircraft Parasol-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1927