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Sud-Est SE.200 Amphitrite

French flying boat airliner with 6 piston engines, 1942

LeO H-49, SE.200 Amphitrite
SE-200
Role	Airliner Type of aircraft
National origin	France
Manufacturer	Lioré et Olivier, SNCASE
First flight	11 December 1942
Status	abandoned
Number built	2

The Sud-Est SE.200 Amphitrite (named after Amphitrite) was a flying boat airliner built in France in the late 1930s,^[1] originally developed as the Lioré et Olivier LeO H-49 before the nationalisation of the French aircraft industry. It was a large, six-engine design with a high-set cantilever monoplane wing, and twin tails. It was developed in response to a French air ministry specification of 1936 for a transatlantic airliner for Air France with a range of 6,000 km (3,700 mi) and a capacity for 20 passengers and 500 kg of cargo.^[2] Designs were submitted by Latécoère, Lioré et Olivier and by Potez-CAMS as the Laté 631, LeO H.49 and the Potez-CAMS 161 respectively, and examples of all designs were approved for construction. A large mock-up, resting on simulated water, was displayed at the 1938 Salon de l'Aéronautique.^[3]

Four SE.200s were under construction at Marignane at the outbreak of the Second World War, and work on them continued after the fall of France, along with a fifth machine now started. The first aircraft, christened Rochambeau flew on 11 December 1942.^[4] Following testing, it was seized by the German occupation and taken to the Bodensee, where it was destroyed in an air raid by RAF Mosquitos on 17 April 1944.^[5]AUSAAF raid on Marignane on 16 September destroyed the second SE.200 and badly damaged the other machines.^[5]

Enough work on the third SE.200 had been carried out to make salvage worthwhile after the war. This aircraft eventually flew on 2 April 1946 but was damaged in a hard landing in October 1949 and was not repaired.^[6] Plans existed to also complete the fourth aircraft, but this did not happen and it and the fifth machine were scrapped. The remains of the first SE.200 were raised by Dornier in 1966.^[6]

Operators[edit]

 France

• French Navy

Specifications[edit]

Data from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1947^[7]

General characteristics

• Crew: 8-10 (including cabin crew)
• Capacity: 80 max (40 max as a night sleeper)
• Length: 40.15 m (131 ft 9 in)
• Wingspan: 52.2 m (171 ft 3 in)
• Height: 9.73 m (31 ft 11 in)
• Wing area: 340 m² (3,700 sq ft)
• Airfoil: root:NACA 2418; tip:NACA 2409
• Empty weight: 32,746 kg (72,193 lb)
• Gross weight: 72,000 kg (158,733 lb)
• Fuel capacity: 38,000 L (10,000 US gal; 8,400 imp gal) in inter-spar wing tanks
• Powerplant: 3 × Gnome-Rhône 14R-26 14 cylinder air-cooled two-row radial piston engine, 1,200 kW (1,600 hp) each for take-off; LH rotation (fitted to starboard)
• Powerplant: 3 × Gnome-Rhône 14R-27 14 cylinder air-cooled two-row radial piston engine, 1,200 kW (1,600 hp) each for take-off; RH rotation (fitted to port)
• Propellers: 3-bladed variable-pitch reversible propellers

Performance

• Maximum speed: 305 km/h (190 mph, 165 kn) at 2,500 m (8,200 ft)
• Cruise speed: 235 km/h (146 mph, 127 kn)
• Range: 6,060 km (3,770 mi, 3,270 nmi) maximum in 60 km/h (37 mph) headwind
• Service ceiling: 5,000 m (16,000 ft)
• Rate of climb: 3.7 m/s (730 ft/min)
• Wing loading: 212 kg/m² (43 lb/sq ft)
• Power/mass: 12.2 kg/kW (20 lb/hp) (at 984 kW (1,320 hp) per engine)

See also[edit]

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era

• Latécoère 631
• Saunders-Roe Princess
• Short Shetland

Related lists

• List of aircraft of World War II
• List of flying boats and floatplanes

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sud-Est SE.200 Amphitrite.

• Bousquet, Gerard (August 1998). "SE 200, paquetbot de l'air". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 345. pp. 10–17.
• Bousquet, Gerard (September 1998). "SE 200, paquetbot de l'air: Deuxième partie". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 346. pp. 40–51.
• Bousquet, Gerard (October 1998). "SE 200, paquetbot de l'air: Troisième partie". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 347. pp. 30–35.
• Bousquet, Gerard (November 1998). "SE 200, paquetbot de l'air: Quatrième partie". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 348. pp. 20–31.
• Hartmann, Gérard (3 May 2000). "L'hydravion le plus rapide du monde fut conçu à Argenteuil" (PDF). Dossiers historiques et techniques aéronautique française. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 November 2004. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
• Hartmann, Gérard. Les avions Lioré et Olivier. Boulogne-Billancourt, France: ETAI. 2002. ISBN 2-7268-8607-8 (in French)
• Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions. ISBN 0-7106-0710-5.
• "The Civil Side at the Paris Show". Flight. p. 506. Archived from the original on 2014-12-18. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
• "Six Motored French Air Giant Weighs 63-tons" Popular Mechanics, June 1943