Farman F.280

The Farman F.280 was a three-engined cantilever-wing monoplane designed in France as a mail carrier in the early 1930s. It was underpowered and slow, and only two were built and briefly used. It was a relative of the F.190 small transport family by its use of an F.190 wing, modified to carry two of its three engines on its upper surface, with the third in the nose and a span of 14.38 metres. The F.280 first flew in February 1931 with three Salmson radial engines of 71 kilowatts each, and in August 1932 the Renault 4Pb inline engines of the F.281 replaced them. It was bought by the airline SGTA as a night mail carrier in October 1932 and tested on the Paris to Berlin route, but after Air France was formed it flew little, logging only 24 hours by spring 1935, and it never received a route certificate.