laststandonzombieisland

Some 90 years ago this week.

Here we see the massive six-engine (four pulling, two pushing) French Latécoère 521 flying boat, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris, at anchor while visiting Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, 14 January 1936. The aircraft, the only one of her type built, was at Pensacola during her travels to celebrate 300 years of the French in the Americas in 1935 and was damaged during a hurricane at the station, later repaired.

NARA 80-CF-4935-1

French Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris being fueled on the beach while visiting Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, 14 January 1936. 80-CF-4935-3a

In its civilian service configuration, the FLVP was designed to transport up to 72 passengers in luxurious conditions, while simultaneously being the largest aircraft built in France and one of the first large passenger aircraft capable of flying trans-Atlantic routes. Powered by a half-dozen Hispano-Suiza 860hp V-12s, she was 103 feet long with a 161-foot wingspan.

Used by Air France on several record-setting proving runs in the late 1930s, when WWII came, FLVP was acquired by the French Navy’s air arm (Aviation Navale) and used for maritime patrol alongside her three upgraded Latécoère 523 sisters (l’Algol, l’Aldébaran, and l’Altair). As part of Flotilla E.6, based in Port-Lyautey, Morocco, they conducted patrols over the Atlantic.

After the fall of France, FLVP was flown to Berre, near Marseille, and remained there for safekeeping by the Vichy government until November 1942, and then by the Germans, who captured her intact after the Torch landings. Following the launch of Operation Dragoon by the Allies in August 1944 to liberate southern France, the aircraft was deliberately destroyed by the retreating German occupying forces.