__NOTOC__ The CAMS 55 was a

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

built in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in the late 1920s which equipped the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

throughout the 1930s.

Design and development

The CAMS 55 design was derived from the unsuccessful CAMS 51 and followed the familiar

Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine (CAMS) was a French manufacturer of flying boats, founded in Saint-Ouen in November 1920 by Lawrence Santoni. History Initially the company built Società Idrovolanti Alta Italia (SIAI) designs under licenc ...

(CAMS) formula of a conventional

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

flying boat configuration with tandem tractor-pusher

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

mounted in the interplane gap. The

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

was open, and there were open gun positions in the bow and amidships. The bow also incorporated an observation balcony with windows sloped to afford a good downward view.Taylor 1986, p. 226.

Operational history

A single

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

was followed by two aircraft to compare different engine installations, one with air-cooled radials and the other a

liquid-cooled Liquid cooling refers to cooling by means of the convection or circulation of a liquid. Examples of liquid cooling technologies include: * Cooling by convection or circulation of coolant, including water cooling * Liquid cooling and ventilatio ...

V engine A V engine, sometimes called a Vee engine, is a common configuration for internal combustion engines. It consists of two cylinder banks—usually with the same number of cylinders in each bank—connected to a common crankshaft. These cylinder ...

; in the end, the French Navy ordered some of each. Eventually, 15 escadrilles were equipped with CAMS 55s of various subtypes, replacing the

Latham 47 The Latham 47, or Latham R3B4 in Naval service was a French twin-engine flying boat designed and built by Société Latham, Société Latham & Cie for the French Navy. The aircraft achieved notoriety in 1928 when aircraft number 47.02 disappeare ...

in some units, and in turn being relegated to secondary duties when the Breguet Bizerte became available in 1936. Twenty-nine remained in service at the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with the last examples serving with Escadrille 20S in

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

until January 1941.

Variants

* 55.001 - prototype with

Hispano-Suiza Hispano-Suiza () is a Spanish automotive company. It was founded in 1904 by Marc Birkigt and as an automobile manufacturer and eventually had several factories in Spain and France that produced luxury cars, aircraft engines, trucks and weapons. ...

12Lbr engines (one built). * 55J - engine test version with

Gnome et Rhône Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp (81 kW) rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licensee ...

licence-built

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter is a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine that was built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developme ...

engines (two built). * 55H - engine test version with Hispano-Suiza 12Lbr engines (two built). * 55/1 - production version with Hispano-Suiza 12Lbr engines (43 built). * 55/2 - production version with

licence-built

engines (29 built). * 55/3 - version with all-metal hull for French Navy requirement for long-range flying boat. Prototype destroyed early in test programme (one built). * 55/6 - version with all-metal hull and floats, saving 400 kg (882 lb) of structural weight; deemed too expensive to produce (one built). * 55/10 - version with geared Gnome et Rhône Jupiter engines and increased fuel tankage (32 built, including four tropicalised machines). * 55/11 - long-range patrol version (one built). * 55/14 - version with all-metal hull (one built).

Design and development

Operational history

Variants

Operators

Specifications (55/10)

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading