Latécoère 550

The Latécoère 550 was a four-engined French seaplane designed in the early 1930s as a bomber and torpedo bomber, ordered in late 1932 by CEPANA, the French commission that examined new prototypes and aircraft. It was a high-wing monoplane with four Gnôme et Rhône 9 Kdr radial engines mounted on the wings in tractor and pusher pairs, a flat-sided fuselage with gun positions and a corridor joining the crew, twin fins and rudders on a braced tailplane, and long single-step floats. For a time the floats were replaced by wheels so that it could also fly as a landplane, and its split undercarriage let it launch torpedoes and bombs from a bay beneath the fuselage, with a maximum weapons weight of 1,500 kg. It first flew from the Latécoère marine base at Biscarosse on 29 April 1933. Trials at Saint-Raphaël found it unstable, with high control loads, and after modifications it was judged too slow. The only example was lost in October 1934 when its port float struts collapsed on alighting, and the type did not go into production.