This was a hell of a video to research, went digging in a lot of places - but am glad to have got all this info consolidated into one place - hope you enjoy it! Feel free to join our Discord community! - discord.gg/WCevgcufwJ Consider supporting us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/AviationDeepDive
Wow, never heard of this one - but give the brave fr ench credit - it was a very bold time in engineering where bigger meant better - also they had to double down on capacity after already conceiving their design - politics killed many great airplanes of that time, not just in France.
What was the helicopteroid commercial craft that got in a vortex state and rolled over atop a manhattan building killing ppl on the ground and ending commercial helo service in the city to this day? I wanna say it was like a hybrid vtol to airfoil thing. Weird name. Would be a great topic for a vid! I'll support that.
As a fan of big flying boats, particularly the Boeing 314, I'm surprised that I've never heard of this plane. It was truly beautiful! If I were a billionaire I would build a modernized replica of it. Good job on the video and thank you for telling the story of such a rare bird.
I live 43 minutes from McMinnville oregon and am going to see H Hughes' massive wooden Hercules or Spruce Goose coined by its critics. It cost a whopping $350,000 000 in today's dollars.
Congratulations for the big research work ! this plane is special to me since my grandfather worked at Latecoere on the building and then maintenance of the 631, and he sometimes talked to me about it (by the way I knew nothing of the Boeing 314, just the opposite to most people here). It is a big pity that it lacked anti-ice boots, this is not understandable (even my own plane built 1974 has several). I learned a lot about that beloved plane thanks to your work. I had still pictures from my grandpa, but it is the first time I see videos of her. Little detail : the newspaper in the video is from from the victory of 1918, not the defeat of 1940, but I prefer it like that ;-) Big Thanks to you, continue the good work !
I saw this and had to comment. In the 1930s my great grandfather was a maintainer for the docks , as well as the aircaraft, for the Boing 314. They made stops in Maine for fuel and to load American passengers.
An important video. This is an outstanding presentation which keeps alive the memory of a remarkable, if under-developed and under-tested aircraft. Many thanks for the time and effort poured into making this documentary. Very much appreciated.
Both surviving Mars were withdrawn from service and put up for sale some years ago. Hawaii Mars was flown to AirVenture Oshkosh a few years ago and put on water pickup and drop demonstrations, probably in an effort to attract buyers. I believe they now both been donated to museums. Almost certainly they will never fly again.
It is interesting that the 631 overlapped the Sanders Roe SR 45 which never went into service because the demand for flying boats had waned due to more airports being built for land based aircraft so putting the 631's safety record aside it would have been redundant anyway just like the SR 45.
the biggest issue that led to the 631 poor reputation was certainly the circumstances that surrounded the prototypes N°1 had a short testing phase before the germans squirreled it away N°2 never was properly tested and was used a the first production plane in the context of a reindustrialising France, the testing phase was shortened to it's bare minimum, leading to host of issues to remain undiscovered until it hit the users (an issue shared by many state-run programs in the 50's)
The most beautiful flying boat I've ever seen. Sounds like the specs change may have had something to do with the later problems. A tragic story, well-told. New subscriber.
Your final thought was going to be my comment - that at least one should have been preserved in a museum. All such rare items deserve to be so memorialized.
I hate how RU-vid puts copy right down it destroys hard working people like yourself I'll like and subscribe just for that to but I really like your videos very informative and interesting and always well researched great work
Yes, imagine taking one of those old flying boat trips across the atlantic in that sort of luxury - what an event! Of course not in any of the ones that crashed :)
The newspaper headline shown at 6:10 did not announce the defeat of France in 1940, as narrated, but the defeat of Germany at the end of WW1 in 1918. Other than that, very interesting information on French aircraft technology in the 1940s.
exactly, you are right and I was about to write about that ! however it is more heart warming to read that than the newspaper of june 40... keep it unmodified 😁
Very well done presentation; I'm a bit of an aviation buff (we were neighbors with Olive Ann Beach and the Wallaces who ran Cessna in the 1950's; and Rutledge who ran Boeing Wichita) and I never knew this story of the French flying boat. Incredible that one has not been preserved for posterity. I appreciate your work on this.
The Brazilian diplomat and composer/singer Vinicius de Moraes ("The Girl From Ipanema") was in this flight between Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo that had an emergency.
6:25 strangely enough, this picture of a SE200 dates from 59-60 judging by the Renault 4cv and Dauphine clearly visible parked under the left wing. Anyway, kudos for this video, the Laté 631 being one of my all time favourite planes, certainly one of the most beautiful ever, even with a fate on a par with the sadly infamous British "Empire of the Clouds" R101 airship. Btw, kudos for your excellent pronunciation of French names (at the one and only exception of Amphitrite to be pronunced /AmphitrEEt/ ): it is such a rare feat with English spoken videos. But being a Greek, I guess you certainly know something about languages. As said from a retired translator and interpreter.🤗
Very interesting. Thank you for producing this. I've always been fascinated by flying boats ,particularly this one as it looked very elegant. Sadly, the old saying that if it looked right then it flew right clearly didn't working this case !
Yip your "French" pronounciations were not merely good but were beauitful even though I don't speak French myself!! Lovely language but still making my mind up on the people themselves!! (ugh)
Never heard of it.....but I have now, thanks to this excellent vid.....well researched and narrated, an absorbing insight int, for me, the Aircraft That Never Was. i can't agree that it was 'beautiful; the nose reminded me of Jimmy 'Schnozzola' Durante!...11/10.
I never even knew this aircraft existed! So beautiful, it was, and now has gone the way of the PBM Mariner. (Though at least there exists one non-flying example of the Mariner in a museum.)
So, weather. Early in my Coast Guard career I was on a High Endurance Cutter (think lightly-armed frigate) doing Ocean Stations, also called Weather Patrols. We had three a bit over 1/3 of the way across the North Atlantic and the Europeans ran three on their side. We ran a navigation beacon, chased weather balloons twice a day to keep them on radar as long as possible, did oceanographic work. And were there. One mid-Atlantic passenger seaplane ditched successfully near a Coast Guard Cutter. (Bermuda Sky Queen, 1947, Ocean Station Charlie) The program was surplus to requirements by the time I was involved (1970-72) - the civilian airliners had better navigation equipment than we did, and the aircraft doing transatlantic flights were much more reliable than in the early days. It was discontinued in 1974, and a lot of our ragtag fleet of Navy-surplus WW2 seaplane/PT boat tenders, destroyer escorts and the like got a much-deserved retirement. (My ship was built in the 1960s and still soldiers on in the Philippine Coast Guard.)
This was an interesting aircraft I did not know much about until it was added to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 as an add-on for sale. Your video adds to my knowledge of an aircraft that might have been in wider use were it not for WWII, then it was made obsolete by the DC6 and Lockheed Constellation. I have flown across the Atlantic 16 times as an air passenger, the Pacific twice and the Caribbean four times, always thinking of these old aircraft as I flew in jet aircraft and their contribution to aviation. Like the Hindenburg, there were tragedies, but civilian aviation has become so much safer over time I think of these tragedies in context and those like you who create videos teach about that context which I avoided during 500,000 miles of business travel and 100,000 miles of personal travel. I found more danger on the ground, as they say, although when I learned to fly in '06 I realized the importance of the pilot in an in-flight emergency, I have been in ground aircraft emergencies and one low fuel in flight emergency because of fog, but I felt calm, knowing I was in the hands of fate, and knowing fate can sometimes keep us calm in a vehicle emergency.
The GR-2600-A2A engine was also used in the Boeing Model 314 'Clipper' and was a known oil guzzler at anything up to 7 US quarts per hour. The aircraft may have looked pretty but its design left a lot to be desired. The loss of a prop from overspeed suggests that the aircraft was not fitted with prop feathering; Hamilton Standard developed prop feathering for the B-314 so it was available and proven technology. So were de-icing boots; Goodrich made them for the B-314 (Boeing made a big fuss about the 'world's biggest deicing boots' in advertising) so they could have been made for the 631. The big barrel-shaped thing between the two pilots is a ship's gyropilot ('ship' as in big metal thing that floats) . The Sperry A-1 gyropilot designed specifically for aircraft had been available since about 1920 and the A-2 was available from about 1932. Both the A-2 and A-3 (1937) gyropilots were fitted in the B-314. So why didn't the Latécoère 631 use deicing boots and an aircraft-specific gyropilot? I'm going to guess "it's American - we're got to use something that's French". Lastly, the B-314 carried almost twice the payload (75 passengers) for around two-thirds of the 631's range on two less engines (2700 miles). It also weighed in at 2.5 tons less than the 631 (41.5 tons gross). The French had the B-314 (and the British Short Brothers C-class 'Empires') as a starting point but (it appears) chose to ignore obvious safety features when designing the Latécoère 631. The iced-up Latécoère 631 inflight shots are from MSFS? Thank you for a well-researched and informative video. I thought I had it bad when researching the B-314 but compared to the Latécoère 631 I had mounds of information.
The most likely reason for the lack of any de-icing gear (apart from the fact that it was a very new idea) was that flying boats in general tended to operate at quite low altitudes (typically around 5000 feet), and these boats were intended to operate in Equitorial latitudes. It was probably thought that the risk of icing was very small and did not justify the extra weight of the kit.
Much guessing, and a lot of missing. The big pylons between the pilots isn't the autopilot (they had a Alkan autopilot based on the SAMM autopilot made for previous bombers). The big thing in the middle is the navigator's compass (whcih also acts as pilot's backup compass) with some shared wing compensation commands for pilots. France hs autopilots since the 30s with Jeagers and lkn types available. Why would they not want a Sperry gyropilot when they used Wright engines and not Lioré engines (used early on the prototype) that had the same average power output. The Alkan autopilot was probably more adapted or more easily adaptable given they could easily call the engineers . (Example, same happened during the procurement process of sniper rifles in the 80s. British Accuracy Int and Verney Carron were both shortlisted but as they could repeatedly tale the Verney guy to the range to test the proto and tell him what they wanted modified (and go for beers after each session) while the Accuracy Int guys were not willing to move much) The Ratier props had auto feathering, however they had resonance problem with the engines that vibrated too much. I ackowledge that the almost inexistant deicing system was quite the problem.
A well rounded video, very enjoying watch. The reenacted part of the iced-wing crash was ... well, chilling. (Pun not intended!) Great french voice acting here. Also the development context is very interesting. I'd not heard of the SE.200 Amphitrite before. I must say, aesthetically that one is even more attractive to me!
The Amphorite was the aircraft that transported Film stars to the first post war Cannes film festival. The Lat. was an incredibly elegant flying boat. The Flight deck was huge like an item from a Jules Vern story.
It is one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring planes of all time. It deserved to succeed. The late 30s is the most interesting period in aviation. So many beautiful aircraft like the DH Albatross, one if your next vides, hopefully.
Just discovered your channel. It has great potential. The amount of information you provide hits about the right note. Would you consider doing some more modern aircraft as well. I know Aircraft like Concorde, SR71, Airbus A380 have been done many times but your style lends itself to adding another facet to those stories. A bit like different singers covering the same song. All have their merit. The Concorde is unmatched in so many ways not just raw speed but what had to be invented to do that. How many planes even today do you know of can fly you at Mach two in the clothes you are wearing. If anything planes have largely stagnated except in areas of fuel economy and noise levels. If Concorde was a 'quiet' aircraft it would still be flying.
It is indeed sad to think that no example survives but it suffered the same fate as the Boeing 314, i.e none still exists. There is a full sized replica of the fuselage of one at a museum in Foynes, Ireland
Yet the faults leading to each crash were different in each case. It's not as if the design had a common flaw that reoccured in all the planes. I think the faults may have been down to wrong assembly, inadequate maintenance -- or even wrong maintenance. A number flew for years before any problems. One crash was due to ice build up, which is nothing to do with its design, but more to do with it not being a required specification (or even something fitted to this kind of plane at the time).
Looked the part, but sadly never lived up to its good looks. Having no de-icing seems like madness today. So many shortcuts were probably taken in building this aircraft. Interesting video!
The immediate post-WW2 period of commercial passenger flight was dangerous as hell. Loss-of-life accidents happened all the time. As far as I can tell there are several reasons for this uptick. First is that the number of aircraft operating as passenger airliners increased dramatically. In the US, especially, all the C-47 and C-46 transports that had been flown by the Army Air Corps were sold to civilian airlines. The large number of returning servicemen who had experienced air travel - before the war a luxury for the very rich - drove an explosion in new routes. Trains were passé, airliners were what you traveled in. None of these new airliners had pressurized cabins. During the war, pilots and crew could use oxygen masks to reach higher altitudes, but fir commercial passenger flight that wasn't practical. So all these new airliners were operating at below 12000 feet, to prevent their passengers from passing out or dying from hypoxia. That put them in an altitude band that is extremely hazardous, because it's also where a lot of bad weather happens. You also have to contend with terrain, which is bad enough on landing or takeoff, but claimed a lot of aircraft during cruising in this time, since even minor miscalculations could result in flying into a cloud filled with rocks. Air traffic control was in it's infancy. Continuous radar tracking and transponders as we know them now were unknown. Aircraft flew in established corridors and reported by radio when they passed radio beacons. This caused a lot of accidents due to navigational errors, but also several spectacularly fatal mid-air collisions as the limited airspace in the transit corridors became increasingly congested. And, finally, there was a widespread lack of safety features. Devices such as leading-edge and control surface de-icers were considered luxuries, not the absolute essential they are today. Navigation was by map and compass, dead reckoning, and landmarks on the ground. Instrument landing systems didn't exist, and crew fatigue was an unrecognized danger. And the Latecoere was flying *very* long distances under these conditions. Aircraft losses were only a matter of time.
With the huge rise in demand there would also be a need to get the passengers on your plane, pricing the seats competivly to do so, and when things get cut to the bone maintenence always suffers, another reason for the high accident rates.
this is a good summary of the situation at that time ! Anyway it is incredible that they did not have any de-icing boots on the leading edge, since if it is 0°C at sea level in winter, your are finished if you cross several clouds between 0 and FL120.
Fascinating airplane, never even knew of it. Thanks for the upload. Did the pilots imagine that flying into icing conditions and thunderstorms would not be dangerous on such large aircraft? Get-there-itis? Arrogance? Hard to fathom.
Thanks for a quality video. A very pretty aircraft. While it should not have shed a prop, and had significant flaws, I think the airframe deserves a hat tip for staying in the air having lost 2 engines on the same side and a large hole in the fuselage (and one engine twisted badly off centre so would have generated heaps of drag). On that occasion it brought everyone (except the 2 initial fatalities) home, so must have had some good flying qualities too.
Very interesting, never heard of this plane. Too bad there are none in museums. I got to see the Spruce Goose one when it was in Long Beach, California. Also impressive.
Thanks for an awesome video! This was a new aircraft to me when it released for Microsoft Flight Sim a couple of months ago, it's an absolute beauty in the sim ans incredible value at 10-15 bucks. This video adds to the fascination, l appreciate the depth of research you did!!!
Thankyou for such an interesting post. There are photos of the salvaged SE200 hulk, at Marignane I believe, as late as 1965! Oh for a model. FRSIN made one in 1/144, but their site lists it as not available.
The French certainly had a predilection for massive flying boats: the biplane Breguet 521 Bizerte, span 115'; Breguet 730, span 132'; Latécoère 302, span 144'; Latécoère 521-523, span 161'; Latécoère 611, span 133'; Potez-C.A.M.S.141, span 134'; Sud-Est LeO H-246.1, span 104'; Sud-Est LeO H-470, span 104'. As a long-time fan of all things that could float 'n' fly, I was fascinated by this video. How I would have loved to have flown in one of the great flying boats of the time, well, not this one. Many thanks for the work you did on this little known craft. Perhaps you could do one on the Loire 130, perhaps the most widely used French wartime flying boat.
Freaking amazing that they were able to get the aluminum that they needed to complete the project during 1942. That's probably half a dozen bf-109 fuselages represented in the wing spar alone there.
