__NOTOC__ The CAMS 55 was a

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

flying boat built in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

in the late 1920s which equipped the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in th ...

throughout the 1930s.

Design and development

The CAMS 55 design was derived from the unsuccessful

CAMS 51 The CAMS 51 was a transport flying boat built in France in the mid-1920s. Designed as a private venture by Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine (CAMS), it was a conventional biplane with two radial engines mounted in a tractor-pusher installati ...

and followed the familiar Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine (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 mounted in the interplane gap. The cockpit 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 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 in some units, and in turn being relegated to secondary duties when the

Breguet Bizerte Breguet or Bréguet may refer to: * Breguet (watch), watch manufacturer ** Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), Swiss watchmaker ** Louis-François-Clement Breguet (1804–1883), French physicist, watchmaker, electrical and telegraph work * Bré ...

became available in 1936. Twenty-nine remained in service at the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, with the last examples serving with Escadrille 20S in

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Aust ...

until January 1941.

Variants

* 55.001 - prototype with

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

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

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine 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 developments tur ...

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 Gnome et Rhône 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