Latécoère 380

The Latécoère 380 was a flying boat designed and produced by Latécoère for use on the mail routes of Aéropostale to South America; it later served the French military as a maritime patrol aircraft. It was a largely conventional parasol-wing monoplane with sponsons on either side of the hull and a pair of Hispano-Suiza 12Ydrs engines in a tandem push-pull arrangement. In September 1931 the first aircraft set six world seaplane records, including three speed-with-load-over-distance records and a closed-circuit distance-with-load record of 2,208 km. A second mail plane followed, and three military flying boats, designated Latécoère 381, came in 1934.