The Latécoère 3 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 ...

transport; the 1919 prototype was a two-seater but the unbuilt production version would have carried two or three passengers as well as the pilot.

Design and development

Immediately after the end of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Pierre-Georges Latécoère Pierre-Georges Latécoère (; 1883–1943) was a pioneer of aeronautics. Born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, he studied in the École Centrale Paris and, during the First World War, started a business in aeronautics. He directed plants that made p ...

began his career in aviation by building

limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment which can be operated mechanically by hand or by a button electronically. A luxu ...

versions of the

Salmson 2 The Salmson 2 A.2, (often shortened to Salmson 2) was a French biplane reconnaissance aircraft developed and produced by Salmson to a 1916 requirement. Along with the Breguet 14, it was the main reconnaissance aircraft of the French army in 1918 a ...

and of the more powerful

Breguet 14 The Breguet XIV (in contemporary practice) or Breguet 14 is a French biplane bomber and reconnaissance aircraft of World War I. It was built in very large numbers and production continued for many years after the end of the war. The Breguet 14 w ...

, both French wartime two seat observation aircraft. The limousines replaced the open rear observer's

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

with seats for two passengers, enclosed in a hump roofed, windowed cabin. They were known as the Limousine Salmson-Latécoère and the Limousine Breguet-Latécoère and both were used in numbers by the new Lignes aeriennes Latécoère. By the end of 1919 Latécoère had built a new and original design, which appeared at the Paris Aéro Salon in December of that year. Like the Salmson 2, it was a two bay biplane with unstaggered, equal span, constant chord, fabric covered wings fitted with

ailerons 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 ...

on both planes and powered by a water cooled Salmson (Canton-Unné) Z9 nine-cylinder

radial Radial is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Mathematics and Direction * Vector (geometric), a line * Radius, adjective form of * Radial distance (geometry), a directional coordinate in a polar coordinate system * Radial set * A ...

engine. However, unlike the Salmson 2 the Latécoère had an entirely metal structure, as well as completely redesigned wings of greater (9%) span and with a 24% increase in wing area. The greater area gave an increase in load from to and an improved commercial load of ; the low useful load of the Salmson 2 had been an important limitation. The Latécoère 3's vertical tail was angular, unlike that of the Salmson though similar to the Limousine Salmson-Latécoère. The intention was to provide the Latécoère 3 with a similar limousine type, two or three seat passenger cabin with space for

post Post, POST, or posting may refer to: Postal services * Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries **An Post, the Irish national postal service **Canada Post, Canadian postal service **Deutsche Post, German postal s ...

to be carried at the rear, though this was never built; the Salon machine had two open cockpits with the pilot in front, as on the unmodified Salsmon. It is not known if the Latécoère 3 was flown but it did not enter production; the small market for small commercial aircraft at this time was dominated by the large numbers of ex-service aircraft available at low prices and the modified Breguet 14 was too cheap for the Latécoère to compete with.

Specifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Latecoere 3 1910s French civil aircraft 03 Biplanes Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear