French heavy transports

Jemiba

Jemiba

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With the great help from Richard and Archibald, I could rework my N.C.211
Cormoran drawings now. On that occasion, I again came across the pre-
project, the N.C.210 . I just have some sparse information about it, but based on
the assumption, that the first Cormoran design was more or less a scaled down
N.C.210 derivative, I made a provisional drawing. Attention, just speculation !
Anywhere any new information about it ?
On the search for material about the Cormoran, I noticed, that the heavy transport
seems to have been a type, the AdlA wasn’t interested in . In fact, so far the NC.210/
211 seems to be the only one, which was designed purely as transport aircraft from
the start. The Breguet Br.730 Deux Ponts started its life as an airliner, the planned
SO.70 was a derivative of the SO.71 bomber and others, as the Breguet 890/892
cannot be mentioned in the “heavy” class .
Were there other projects for heavy transports or had France just no demand for
this type of aircraft ?
 

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In fact, as you say the AdA has no demand for this type of aircrafts. Aparently the service prefer using a handfull of civilian aircrafts.
Since the 50's, DC-6s, DC-8s and Airbus (A-310 and A-330s) had been used in this role...
The last Late 631 were used as cargo (as the Armagnacs) but they were not property of the AdA! They were owned by private cargo airlines such as France Hydro.
This company used the 631s in Africa until 1955, but a serie of deadly crashes put and end to the service. The Late-631 had serious flutter problems which led to the crash of 4 aircrafts and the death of hundred people.
 
Ah, strange, that I forgot flying boats at all ! And the Convair Tradewind
even is an example, that flying boats can be used to transport tanks and
vehicles. But I think at least for military use, a flying boat will only be
"second choice" in most cases. But Latécoère was a candidate, that
produced several civil designs, which could have been used as a basis
for military derivatives, the Laté 141, Laté 160 and Laté 228. But I
couldn't find any clue in Cunys Latécoère book ...
 
"In fact, as you say the AdA has no demand for this type of aircrafts"

Had a look again inthe RAF Flying Review .11.62 article, that triggered my
search. Funny thing, they say, the Cormoran was intended to carry a
12 tons tank, but the army had no such tank at all ! A product without
a market ..
 
Its typical from the 1945-1952 era! Governement ask heavy cargoes to carry... non existing tanks.
The aircraft industry also build 4 naval fighters prototypes (2 VG-90, a NC-1080 and a Nord 2200) for a non existing PA.28 carrier

Bad times...
 
Cormoran was intended to carry a
12 tons tank, but the army had no such tank at all
Click to expand...
Maybe they were hoping to shave a ton off the AMX-13
 
"Its typical from the 1945-1952 era! "

That was (and is !) no typical french desease, I'm afraid .

Taxpayers of the world, unite ! ;)
 
I'm Italian but I think I understand the French military and government of early after the war: they were legally a great power (ONU, etc.) but with not much power...And they tried with the resources they had. Don't strafe at them, at least they knew what they had to do. With De Gaulle the self delusion was higher: think of the Force de Frappe before the submarines: did AdA really think the Mirage IVA could survive a few miles in enemy sky going to Moscow? In fact the original proposal (Mirage IVB, and later Minerve, were much more serious). French industry was perfectly apt in building them, except for the engines.... But there was no money, so De Gaulle substituted blablas for real power, and used the engines as an excuse to kill the "real" bomber to have a "supposed" bomber. OK, open fire... :D
 
did AdA really think the Mirage IVA could survive a few miles in enemy sky going to Moscow?
Click to expand...
The first Mirage IV could not even fly to Moscow in combat configuration.

The target was supposed to be Kiev.
 
Skybolt said:
With De Gaulle the self delusion was higher: think of the Force de Frappe before the submarines: did AdA really think the Mirage IVA could survive a few miles in enemy sky going to Moscow?
Click to expand...

Nuclear submarine development was delayed in France due to lack of collaboration on the part of the United States. The French eventually failed at their first attempt at a SSN. Hymen Rickover held the key to nuclear propulsion tecnology. Rickover didn't like the French in general, and despised De Gaulle in particular. Oddly, Rickover wasn't altogether thrilled by the British initially, but Mountbaton won him over - hence the American assistance to the British nuclear submarine program.
 
The Q-244!!! what a failure... nuclear engine would have been bigger than the submarine itself :eek:

concerning Mirage IVs going to Moscow... they could go there with flight refuelling. A special road had been drawn over the Mediterranean sea. This allowed a flight refueling over Greece...

Just two things

- I don't like very much the tone of the last posts (albeit I don't give a damn about de Gaulle)

- they are totally off topic

Where are the moderators ?
 
Ok, Archibald, I take the fire... :( What I wanted to say is that the Fourth Republic governments tried to stay up to the point to the great power status of France but with faltering resources, and this was for example letal to the Indochina campaign. The AdA did the same, seeing clearly what they had to do. But again, no resources. Overall, no self-delusion in that, and this, IMHO, is positive, albeit tragic, for all involved at the time.
 
Gentlemen,

1. political comments: we are here to chat and share knowledge about unbuilt projects in a friendly environmen. It's a treasure. People here have many different ways of thinking, please try to avoid what could be offensive for the others.

2. off topic: the topic tittle here is French Heavy Transports.
The forum is growing and offtopic generates chaos which downgrades the efficience of the search tool.
 
Archibald said:
The Q-244!!! what a failure... nuclear engine would have been bigger than the submarine itself :eek:
Click to expand...

The Gymnote did eventually see useful service as trials ship for the delayed SSBN program. Somewhere, I think there is French site with an internal profile drawing of the original Q-244 SSN. That would be an interesting naval thread.



Archibald said:
Just two things

- I don't like very much the tone of the last posts (albeit I don't give a damn about de Gaulle)

- they are totally off topic

Where are the moderators ?
Click to expand...

Skybolt commented on the seemingly irrational decision to concentrate on "Force de Frappe before the submarines."

I just wanted to point out that France's nuclear submarine program had experienced a number of significant setbacks, and that the development of the Mirage IVA actually made sense from a French perspective. If France couldn't produce a system equivilent to Polaris, an interim bomber was probably the best choice available - despite the obvious shortcomings. The French couldn't have been too angry about the America's denial of nuclear technolgy, because after all 12 C-135s were purchases to support the Mirage IVA fleet.

The fact remains that France's post-war relationship with the United States has been troubled, with far too many instances of tension and mutual betrayal.

Rickover didn't trust the 4th Republic because many of its unstable governments included pro-communist members. In his eyes, French access to American technology was a security risk, and even the later right-of-center DeGaulle regime was dangerously erratic. Was Rickover right or wrong? The only answer is that Rickover was highly opinionated and had almost complete personal control over the nuclear submarine program.
 
my aim wasn't to flame someone, I was just annoyed by the tone used.

Nothing happened.
I see that the Q-244 has its own thread now. I posted some links on the subject...

Let's go back to the heavy transports...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Carbonell's Volume 2 of French Secret Projects includes info on French transport plane projects that didn't leave the drawing board. Hence, you might want to rely on that volume to see if it include additional info on the NC.210.
 

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