Potez 452
Potez · France · first flew 1932 · reconnaissance aircraft
The Potez 452 was a French Navy catapult-launched reconnaissance seaplane, built to a 1930 specification for a rugged shipboard observer that colonial cruisers could carry.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | High-mounted, straight |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 1 × piston, wing-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | Single radial engine mounted on struts above the fuselage |
| T — Tail | Conventional |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- Parasol-wing flying boat with a hull, and two small auxiliary floats at the wingtips
- Single radial engine mounted on struts above the fuselage
- Compact size built to fit a warship's catapult
The parasol wing, the boat hull with its small wingtip floats, and the pylon-mounted radial engine perched above the fuselage mark it as a classic interwar French catapult observation type.
Specifications
- The Potez 452 has a length of 10.21 m (33 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 12.98 m (43 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 217 km/h (135 mph).
- Typical crew: 2.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
A first prototype flew in April 1932 with a Salmson radial engine but was criticised for digging into waves on the water and for being underpowered; a re-engined version with a Hispano-Suiza 9Qd went into a small production batch of 16 — ten ordered in 1935 and six more in October 1936 as the Potez 452.
Variants
Beyond the more powerful production engine fit, the type saw little variation, remaining a small-batch specialist type.
Where you'll see it
It equipped catapults aboard the battleship Lorraine and the cruisers Jean de Vienne, La Galissonniere and Lamotte-Picquet, giving the French Navy limited long-range reconnaissance ahead of its surface ships in the late 1930s.
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