Wonder if there is any records on how many were shot down as enemy planes in 1940 by the allied? Any assumptions? The similarity with Bf 110 is quite striking....
The Potez 630 aircraft were often used in reconassaince duties during the Phoney War, and so I imagine there were a few that were shot at during that period. Apparently there was enough of a concern among Potez 630 pilots, that to help prevent this mistake, the French air force decided to paint a long and bold white arrow along both sides of the Potez fuselage to allow for easier identification.
? What is the reason of this similarity? The ingeneers that worked in the proyect both/together any time in the past? Spionage? Jan.
www.aviastar.org/air/france/potez-630.php K-P - The above site quotes "up to 30" Potez-631's shot down in error by Allied gunners. I assume this guesstimate includes 630's also (631 was the nightfighter variant). You're right - it did resemble the Bf 110 quite closely. Klive.
I'm not going to comment on that. All these similarities are superficial. They both have 2 wings, two engines, two tail, two crew. End of similarity. Even the famous 'Tu-144 is a copy of Concorde' is bullshit, wing shapes are completely different for starters.
I would agree and say this is mere coincidence. The Potez aircraft factory was in Meaulte in Northern France(it still exists and works for Airbus). The Potez engineers designed many great aircrafts and did certainly not need to copy the ME110. The problem was that the French government did not invest enough money in a proper aviation. As a result (I am hardly exagerating) there were almost as many prototypes as combat ready aircrafts and the testing phase of many aircrafts lasted forever. by the time they were ready they were obsolete. The Potez630 was okay for recco , but there were only a few available in 1940. There were even fewer assault aircrafts, so these recco planes planes were mostly sacrificed in suicidal assault operations.
I have always been curious why France spent so much of their resources on so many different flying boats and float planes before the war. I know the country has two coast lines but looking in my books they produced 32 different types before the war started. Was there some corruption during the late 30's ? Surely someone knew how hard it would be to maintain parts and service for so many types. For the flying boats only a few of each type were produced. Breguet 521 Bizerte Breguet 730 Breguet 790 Nautilus CAMS 37 CAMS 55 CAO 30 Latecoere 302 Latecoere 521-523 Latecoere 611 Loire 501 Loire 70 Loire 130 Potez 452 Potez-CAMS 141 Sud-Est Leo H-246.1 Sud-Est Leo H-470 16 flying boat types total Besson MB-411 Bloch MB-480 Centre NC-470 Centre NC-410 Dewoitine HD. 730-732 Gourdou-Leseurre GL-810-GL-812 Gourdou-Leseurre GL-832 HY Gourdou G-120 HY Latecoere 29.0 Latecoere 198 Levasseur PL 15 Liore-Et-Olivier H-257Bis Liore-Et-Olivier H-43 Loire 210 Loire-Nieuport 10 Sud-Est SE 400 16 float plane types
It was a time of an incredible prolific production of all kinds of many fine aircrafts. Others were totlaz failures. However the lack of concertation and coherent policies, of constant refusal to buy sufficient airplanes lead to a diversification that ended up beign a waste and cost a fortune, not only for productivity, but also storage, logistics, money etc.. it took a long time to train the new pilots, to test the aircrafts, but when war broke out there were enough aircrafts ready, there weren't any spares either, nor trained pilots and many of the aircrafts were experimental and sometimes useless. This is why some of them were found almost intact in June. Not because they did did not want to fight, but because there were no spares to keep them flying and the few pilots left were grounded. And why attack fighters with flying boats...One challenge was to sell commercial versions of the fly boats and others abroad and make money for a more coherent programm, but war took everybody by surprise.
Yes and elegant too, but so expensive and I'm afraid a waste of time.. If the airforce had ordered some more Dewoitine fighters and replace some of the Moranes which were oboslete in 1938, the odds would have been very different. Some extra American Curtiss 75 wouldn't have bothered either, but so much money was spent on prototypes. The Potez 63 was a fine aircraft for recco, but it was used for dive bombing , because there was hadly any thing else to compete with the Stukas and the Me110. The problem is tha the Potez were attacked by Me109s.... In 1940 several mock fights took place between a captured ME109 , a British Hurricane and a Dewoitine 152. The results were surprising. The Hurricane was outdated but still easier to manoeuvre than the 1939 Me109. The Dewoitine was only 20mph slower than the Me109 and easier to manoeuvre. So as late as April 21st the French authorities were confident in their aircrafts and in those used by the British. In May 1940 the Germans attacked but the 1940 Me109 had more powerful engines and the Dewoitines were now too slow.. !! It was too late to get a more powerful engine. Few pilots flew a dewoitine and still did a good job. The majority flew the older Moranes and stil lhad a suprsingly high score considering the outfashioned aircraft they used.
Just check the Loire-Nieuport LN 401...Stuka perhaps? Were French not aware of the "pin-point" accuracy of the plane then???? I´m sure the wings were perfected that way only for dive-bombing.... Loire-Nieuport LN 40 LN 401 LN 411 LN 42
I think the charge that they put on the French designer was just an excuse to give him a hard time. The inverted gull wing allows the wing to have the same location to the fuselage and still have enough ground clearence for a bomb to clear the prop or on the Voight Corsair for the huge prop to have clearence from the ground and still have the correct angle of attack for take off and landings. If the Stuka had a stright wing then the cradle that holds the bomb would have to be longer to clear the prop when released. If it were longer then it would have to be located further back and this would affect the balance of the aircraft. Anouther aircraft with a gull wing is the B-25. This again is to allow the wing to stay the same and still allow ground clearence for the large props. I am sure there are other types with the gull wing that I can not think of now. Great pictures KP, thanks for posting them and Merry Christmas ! I hope you get the day off and enjoy it !
Thanx TA! Just starting another working day here...the middle one of the three during the holidays...so no problem with any possible Xmas head aches here....
