Latecoere 631

[chris190]

Has anyone any information as to where I might find decent scale technical drawings online of this magnificent machine? All I can find are very basic little 3 views on Wikipedia and pretty well anywhere else, nothing better on any of the specialist sites, plus loads of pictures of the box top drawing of the Contrail resin kit.

I'm awaiting replies from the French Hydraviation Museum and Memoires Hydravions website but am not too hopeful.

Best wishes

Chris

[gomidefilho]

Chris I'm searching in my La Fana collection if I have any information or plans about Late 631, I have Mushroom book about French Flying Boats but Late 631 not covered in this book because is not military use.

in the internet the best site for info about Late 631 is a Flickr account

https://www.pinterest.fr/ecologreenfrog/latécorère-631/

[sepp10]

I believe that the following La Fana issues might be of value.
- Fana de l'aviation N° 393 to N° 397
also

Latécoère "Les avions et hydravion" Docavia

[chris190]

I've found a photo of a drawing on Pinterest, many thanks Gomedefilho! It's a very good start though and should enable some work to commence in due course. Seems very odd that such a much admired aircraft should be so lacking in documentation.

There is a free online download of a really excellent book entitled "L'exploitation Commerciale des Latecoere 631" which I've blundered my way through (as google translate won't work and my french is school level only) but enough can be gathered about the rather tragic history of this machine; "malheureusement" appears quite frequently and the last straw comes with the remaining three aircraft being destroyed in the hanger when the roof collapsed.

However, just one long section detailed drawing appears in the whole 350 odd pages, so this might be an uphill battle!

Best wishes

Chris

[murphyaa]

I found this site:
fabien togman - Latecoere 631

At the bottom is a fully rotatable 3D model. I was able to get good side, top, front and bottom views from it.

I was also able to zoom in on areas to get more details.

[C9B]

You guys are good at this.

[Yale]

Many French designs of the 1920s and 1930s are just weird, so the 631 blows me away. What a classy, elegant airplane. And the artwork at the site Murph suggests blew me away all over again.
Unfortunately, as reported in the Virtual Air Museum (Latecoere L.631 Lionel de Marmier - passenger flying boat), the service career of this plane did not remotely track with its good looks.

[57townsman]

There is a free 3d model on Sketchfab and CGTrader websites. It’s the same model on both sites.

[Karl]

I wonder what the reasons were for the poor safety record.

It does appear to have very small vertical surfaces compared to the fuselage area forward of the wing.

[chris190]

Very good links, thank you; the 3d model is excellent and it would be great to see this converted into a card model kit. The other link with contributions from correspondents who knew, or saw, or actually flew in the plane is another fascinating piece of history.

The realities of the "golden age" of flying are always so different to what we imagine; the journey starting at 2 p.m. in Paris, the arrival at Biscarosse at 10 p.m., the flight at 7 a.m. the following day after a night at the hotel on site, the interminable flight in an aircraft which leaked water from the windows in a rainstorm, and whose toilets had a backdraft which sprayed the user. The on board bar was apparently so noisy from the engines that 15 minutes was about the longest that passengers would want to stay in it.

The failure of the type, apart from the incident of the propeller blades flying off and slicing into the fuselage, killing two passengers, seems to have been caused by the engine vibration frequency matching that of the airframe (think I have that right but see the on-line book I refer to earlier); this caused early fatigue and failures in ailerons and wings which I take to be similar to that of the Tacoma Narrows bridge which literally shook itself to bits.

When you look at it , though, it's such a slim and graceful design that structural failure, particularly of the wings, does seem to be a distinct possibility.

Update on drawings is that I now have pdf extracts from the on-line book which appear usable with some effort so I'll make a start on that presently.

Best wishes

Chris