The French Flying Boat That Was Launched From Warships | Loire 130 [Aircraft Overview #92]
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- Today we're taking a look at the Loire 130, a French Naval reconnaissance aircraft that saw service during the Second World War. It was successful in its role, but its limited production run and often remote service meant that it remains relatively obscure in the history books.
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The Hangar Team :
Rex - Aviation enthusiast for 25+ years, obsessive collector of books, compiler of research, and narrator.
Alexandros - Co-Researcher and preserver of Rex's sanity.
Franch - Editing guru, makes Adobe seem "fun".
Sources:
Bousquet.G (2013), French Flying Boats of WWII.
Marriott, L. (2006). CATAPULT AIRCRAFT: Seaplanes that flew from ships without flight decks. Pen & Sword Aviation.
Jordan, J., & Dumas, R. (2009). French Battleships 1922-1956. Seaforth Publishing.
Loire 130. (n.d.). Avions Militaires 1939-1945.
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F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
About plane requests, do you have plans to look at the Dewoitine 520? It's an interesting plane which had a very decorated service life and was actually representative of a very remarkable time in French airplane design, where their designs were very ahead of their time but held back by the technology of the time (like their nose-mounted Hispano cannons being far ahead of their time in the 30s but only being able to fire off 60 rounds).
Nice that you have an FAQ in your comments now. keep up the improvements!
You should make a video about Brazilian airplanes, there is a whole national industry (Embraer is the developer), one example from the 80's is the EMB-312 "Tucan"
May I suggest the Horten FMA IA-38 "naranjero"
Thanks my friend for another fine Aircraft video that i enjoy very much.......
Shoe🇺🇸
"Aesthetically striking" is my new favourite euphemism.
Aesthetically struck with a cane
Wonderfly descriptive, especially for French bombers and seaplanes of this era.
Would a french floatplane be just as ugly by any other name? 😁🤣😁
I agree. I look forward to using it myself.
"Yes, that baby certainly is aesthetically striking." 😜
Lolol
Whereas you could say many flying boats of that era looked as if they were designed to fly, this truly does look like a boat with wings and a propeller attached to it, amazing that it handled well.
The boat hukk shape is the best looking part!
The rest?????
"Weird but effective" describes a lot of French things
The French Walrus - equally strange looking and equally effective.
Just in case anybody's interested... Ian of Forgotten Weapons has an episode about Darne mashine gun, that was used on this plane.
Like Ian could ever dare to not cover a French firearm
I really like the look of these kinds of seaplanes, I suppose I'm alone in that.
A plane’s design is sometimes only as good as the paint job. The model at the beginning of the plane looks great. The plane itself doesn’t look bad, but with the paint job, it looks great.
Honestly, you're not alone. Much like my visual taste in cars (such as the M1 Procar), the 130 is one of the examples I point at as a successful way to put function over form and still end up with something that looks good.
Ive seen the french model kits of this machine and love the quirkyness with metal with red and yellow stripes. Looking forward to this one . Dick Dastardly would definitely use this in pusuit of pidgeon.
Stop that Gaullist Pigeon now!
@@emjackson2289 😁😁😁
Those stripes identify planes in service of the Vichy regime
Mutley! Do something!
The Loire 130 looks perfectly inter-war to me.
Kinda look good somehow
Looks better than the British Walrus which is a similar size and weight. Only advantage of the Walrus was it was amphibious and not just a seaplane. I don't get why you thought it was ugly though.
Saying it was better looking than the Walrus is like saying that Northern Canada is currently warmer than liquid nitrogen. Technically it is true, but doesn't really tell you a lot.
As far as ugly interwar French aircraft, this just isn't that ugly lol
great that you picked this rather rare little flying boat. She has certain similarities with the British Supermarine "Walrus"
Including the questionable aestetics. Let's be honest here, for all the Walrus's undeniable effectiveness, a pretty plane it most certainly is not.
Does she too have the distinction of offending every single hognose snake or did she offend every single walrus?
@@lafeelabriel Flyboat characteristics: sail like a boat stable...take off and land from water AND capable of having VOLUME to carry 'shit'... some range /efficient flying...relative to the time......all those APPLY to the L130 and walrus...
No requirements like ..SLEEK design...agile against fighter aircarft...loading torpedos and bombs in the fuselage..having a porcupine setting of massing machineguns againts dozens of enemy fighters...etc..etc...
@@oddballsok I am well aware. But the fact remains that all that can be summed up as "flying boats rarely look aestetically pleasing".
Yes, there are exceptions to this, but they are few and far between.
@@lafeelabriel I find the Grumman line -- Geese, Mallards, Albatrosses, etc. -- to be quite eye-pleasing.
Re schedule. I don't count 'em dude. I am just delighted when you post. It is always excellent. So please follow the advise of the good Dr, Mr Hunter S Thompson.... Never apologise, never explain. I had no idea that you had a posting cadence so the explanation about delays went right over my head. Your content is always excellent and I would prefer to wait for a well edited video, than watch a rushed one. Always fun to watch a computer happily destroy hours of work. "Microsoft. How can we wreck your day today". Commiserations from Spain.
Amazing work as always.
I utterly adore obscure auxiliary aircraft like this. Thank you for this video!
I wouldn’t sweat the time schedule. It just doesn’t matter to me because I’m always just so happy to see a new video. THANKS
That's actually a nice looking seaplane. And the 3-D model is great.
Very pretty imo. Love interwar stuff, especially flying boats
I think it looks quite good. Another one that would make a great flying camper van.
I must have really low standards, because I love how this thing looks
Yah looks like donkey kong and mario
I like it and the British Walrus and other similar sea planes....
I kind of like the look of the plane. The shape of cockpit windows, coupled with the narrow nose,, and then the narrower fuselage, gives the plane a kind of dragonfly like appearance, from certain angles.
More characterful than ugly in my book. Got to say Rex, I continue to be super-impressed by the 3D illustrations that Mark Rowles is producing - they're hugely additive to an already excellent channel.
The appearance of the front section really takes the definition of the *"Flying boat"* to a whole different angle...or level, depending on your perspective
Not a bad looking aircraft,I certainly wouldn't call it ugly.But,as they say,beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
G'day,
"Beauty is in the
Eye of the
BEER Holder...!"
Also known as the
Beer-Goggles
Effect.
The phenomenon which causes people to seduce Bush Pigs in the wee small hours, thinking they've won a
Beauty...; then - come the morning after, and in the Dawnlight realise the magnitude of their error.
Apparently, going by the way this thing contrives to be a Monoplane which has as many Struts and their attendant Drag as a Biplane of the same weight and power.
Clearly, the Frog-eater who designed this was as pithed as a Newt, and perhaps their Beer-Goggles didn't ever come off...
The Rear Gunner's Position was obviously intended to only ever be used when carrying one's Mother-In-Law ; and wanted to put her where nobody had to listen to her list of complaints...(lol).
I find this machine to be clunky, boxy, afflicted with 500 Hp or so worth of gratuitously hubristic Drag ; the sort of thing which looks to have been sketched on the back of an Envelope by a Committeeof dypsomaniacs, built of Components supplied by Subcontractors who had never previously met, and then assembled by a Picnic Party of Agricultural Fencing Labourers.
French Design is considered to be something of an "aquired taste", as they say...; some people cherish it's quirks, others disparage it on sight.
Maybe it harks back to whoever read Tintin Comics as a youngster likes such Frenchification, and those who didn't, don't (?) !
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
French flying boats from before and during WW2 are one of the most under appreciated aviation topic. As are french prewar planes in general. I always liked the big Latecoere boats but there is so little info on them for the french challenged like me...
Kinda nice looking ngl
Wonderful.
A new video from The Hanger
Thanks for the interesting video! @11:17, the man standing in front of the propeller is either very brave or not so smart while the flying boat is moving in a choppy sea.
His role is probably to attach the hook of the crane to the plane
Since the day I watched Studio Ghibli's Poco Rossa, I always like the aesthetic of a top mounted engine flying boat or floatplane. It's too bad there are so few examples of this configuration historically.
Now this configuration is seen more often in luxurious small flying boats though modern looking, retained very little of the older designs' charm.
Took me some time to find a 1/72 model of this. Luckily the local "antique toys" store had an unopened Azur kit in stock about 3 years ago.
Still hunting for some Caproni models...
The old Azur kit. What memories... Short struts and vacu clear parts were dodgy. Capronis: The 310 and relatives are produced by both Italeri and Special Hobby, IIRC. Italeri doesn't have the 310, though.
Compared to a lot of other Seaplanes from the era, I find its design quite striking!
Where would the Fuel Cell be located?
Belly Tank would give it better balance I beleive...
You can see it in the plan view. I think it was two tanks per wing. These were located inside the inner half of the wing, covered in metal sheet.
Cheers.
Nice video, Rex. And I must admit your pronounciation of french words is the best of any other aviation / history channel I know. 👍
In a couple of instances I've discovered I've been pronouncing them wrongly for quite some time.
YES!!! More flying boat sea planes content.
Thanks Rex!
Fantastic! This is my favourite flying boat and it's wonderful to see you finally covering it
Love you and love this series
even if it has the cab of an EMD GP30, I love that plane, it is my favorite.
Thank you for another informative video. I really like that you show all of the other aircraft that this aircraft had to compete against to win this contract. This informs the viewer a lot about the state of aviation at that time. I appreciate your efforts. I hope one day you will do a video about the Beechcraft 18. The only aircraft I ever left the while it was in the air. The first and last time I used a parachute. Another reason I remember this specific airplane.
Our drop zone had a Beech 18 . I jumped out of it more that a few times and on one climb to altitude we got the pilot to do a role . It was perfect 1 g role luckily because I couldn't find two seat belt straps that fitted together . Sweet aircraft .
@@rickmoore3730 The other reason I remember the Beechcraft 18 is I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Which is where they were built.
@@johnforsyth7987 Well that is a good reason to remember it ! I always thought it had beautiful lines and luckily there are a few flying still . The oddest thing for me is when we got up to 10,500' and on jump run once the pilot told us we were just standing still ( ground speed ) due to very high winds and we would have to land . It felt odd landing in an airplane ! LOL
Ive got to say that having the coloured computer generated planes, in my opinion, enhances the already very good narration and historical interest in the subject matter. I like.
Gareth
From the nation that made "battleships" that looked like floating "hotels" this is a pretty good attempt. Not a patch on a "shagbat" though! Great video as always Rex.
Looking forward to this one !
I really like this new format with detailed 3D models. Do you make these yourself?
Fantastic video as always! Have you ever considered doing small videos on fictional planes for fun? Specifically, this one puts the great movie “Porco Rosso” in mind 😄
If he covered more modern aircraft, he could also look at some of the superplanes from Ace Combat games.
As an april fools special it would be a good idea
The comparable US aircraft I suppose would be the Vought Kingfisher. It's interesting that they would choose a flying boat rather than a seaplane as a catapult launched reconnaissance plane. Nobody else did that.
wahooooo the vid is out a lot earlier than when I thought it would be. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE GREAT CONTENT!!!!
the 1000 kms range is amazing even nowaday jet fighter not always reach that range
Hmm, the French Curve sets were left hanging in the drawing office cupboard for this one . . . : )
I've heard of this plane! I'm surprised it took you this long to make a video for it!
If memory serves me right, and it's been well over a decade by now, but this was the spotting aircraft for the french ships in Navy Field. Good memories.
Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. A *long* time.
I love these little buggers in WT. I wouldn't mind owning one irl too. Very quaint lil planes
Rex, Enjoy hearing about these airplanes. You do a good job. My compliments.
Incredible! My suggestion in your last FAQ!
Love it, thanks for posting.. All flying boats are cool.. Heve you ever done the Saunders Roe jet flying boat ?
The Squirt, as Eric 'Winkle' Brown called it.
I'm a bit confused about where the cockpit is. I think the glazed cockpit like area is actually not the cockpit and the pilot sat in the open seat on the left side in front of the engine. The "cockpit" was probably the navigator/spotter position and the front crew member was a navigator, not a flight engineer (navigation being a tough job over water in these days). I guess the rear gunner probably had his main role as a flight engineer as there seems to be a windowed part of the fuselage just below the engine, which was probably his flight station except when manning the gun.
Awesome. I enjoy seeing videos on the obscure interwar peroid
Holy crap love those 3D models of the aircraft. Did you make them?
This wasn't an ugly plane at all. It was rather cool looking in my humble opinion.
Awesome video thank you Rex
I have a 1/72 scale model of this plane. Unbuilt. I like it, but the struts.... o God, all those struts....
New video, lovely
The Levasseur pl 200 just looks wild :D
What a wonderfull little plane.
I love it, reminds me of Porco Rosso's fantastical machine.
reminds me of a monoplane version of the British Supermarine Walrus
Or could be a Sikorsky S-39.
Love those 30s era flying boats.
I had a model of a great looking German flying boat that I built as a kid. I wonder if that will crop up here. I think it was a Dornier of some kind.
I really enjoy your videos. Enjoy tour vacation.
Thanks for this story of the Loire 130. I had never seen a picture the sole example tested by the Germans.
Thanks
A flying boat, that actually looks like it is a barge with wings. Really cute design, even more so when it seems to have worked really well. Taking off from ships, abiliy to fly relatively high combinedwith long endurance... Imagine this in the outback, looks like you could almost fit a horse or couple of small cows in the back.
Hee haw!
Flying Boats and Floatplanes are my favorite aircraft.
Ercoupe or as it is sometimes called erpcup,should be your next plane rex.
A Franco-English invasion in 1940 is going to be a little bit of a challenge given England hasn't had an independent foreign policy outside of being part of the UK since 1707.
I have been interested in this plane, having a soft spot for flying boats and seaplanes, so this video as really been very welcome. Although not adding beauty to the aircraft, the forward and downward view for the navigator/observer must have been very effective.
Love these smaller French flyingboats .. 😎
if you re in the mood for french flying boat you should talk about the potez cams 141 it was a aircraft built in in single examplary and apparently saw action and sank u-105
I don’t think I could be entirely satisfied with a Rex’s Hangar episode that didn’t include the word, “whilst”.
There is UA-cam video of American planes strafing a group of approximately 6 to 8 Loires moored in some bay in Italian possession. I think they were a slightly larger seaplane, they still carried French registration on the wings.
Good show.
Merci beaucoup .
Bags *not* being the rear gunner. That propeller blade is too close for comfort.
Great video, great subject.
But what is the structure above the pilot?
I would guess that it was used as an attachment point for lifting the plane aboard ships.
@@malkymac7258 thank you, that makes sense, though it doesn't look perfectly on the centerline.
I thought, perhaps, they didn't have enough struts and braces.
It almost looks like thr pitot tube, raised up to keep it out of any sea spray. That would be my guess.
The engine.
Now, the off-set tripod in front of the pilot? Pitot tube and antenna for one of the radios, IIRC.
@Le Trepidant No, the braced mast above the pilot, on the cabin roof. There is nothing mounted in front of the pilot - until the nose gunner gets busy.
The antennae appear to run from the center vertical stabilizer to the wing tips.
It would be interesting to see one of these recreated with modern lightweight materials and a more efficient engine. Maybe some workshop tinkerer can put one together. I'm sure the plans are still on file somewhere.
@RexsHangar >>> 👍👍
Thank you for another flying machine Rex episode.
Wonder what was that three pod stand contraption between the cockpit and front machine gun nest?
I would call it quaint, not ugly
Is the open cockpit position just forward of the engine nacelle on the upper dorsal of the fuselage a gunner's position, or the Pilot's seat, or an alternate control position? Wikipedia has a 3-view showing dual cockpits, but your photos only show one on the Port side.
Never mind ugly, It's damn cute!!!!
A bit like a Supermarine Walrus with one fewer set of mainplanes but the same general level of aesthetics. Those outermost windscreen panels look like they would provide a good view forward although acting like permanently deployed airbrakes.
Imagine being that gunner. “Be careful. If you turn your head the wrong way, your brain is gonna be paint on the vertical stab!”
It reminds ne of the British Supermarine Whale which had a similar function, but, to me at least, was a much "cleaner" design.
I bet engine maintenance on this plane was difficult. I wonder if they had to remove it entirely or if they just got up there and worked on it like that..
My God that tail gunner position is just straight up evil design! That is a terrifyingly insane place to be seated!
As always thank you for the fantastic content!
All sides are accessible, I'm just not sure I'd want to be working on it twenty feet above the deck of a swaying battleship in the Atlantic. These days you'd have some sort of platform as part of the supporting structure, but in the mid 1930s health and safety hadn't been invented, do probably not...
Iirc, all panels were dettachable. Inner part of the wing was metal-clad, so no issues on steping on it. Maintenance was done inside the hangar, under cover.
Interesting aircraft. Are there any remaining examples anywhere?
Love it
Did the pilot fly those 8 hour missions from the open cockpit above the cabin or were there duplicate controls in what looks like a large modern enclosed cockpit? Doubtful, I know, but for the pilot's sake I hope so.
Could you please do a video on catapult launched aircraft.
Great video as always :) Are you going to do a video about the Walrus?
First an observation. DAMN those full span Ailerons must have been heavy. Now a question. It looks like there is an open cockpit, behind and to the port of center, yet there is that glazed area that looks like a conventional windscreen and flight deck of such an aircraft. Any idea what that open cockpit was all about?
Another great video, thanks ! This plane reminds me of a single wing version of a Supermarine Walrus. Ugly maybe but I still like it 😁... While on the topic of the Walrus, it would make a great subject for an upcoming video maybe ?? Cheers !
It looks as though the dorsal machine gun position would have very limited arcs of fire, and the gunner would be more than a little distracted by the need to keep his head out of the pusher propeller’s path.
Could you do a similar video but about italian floatplanes that were launched from ships?
I wonder what the story is behind the damaged wingtip in the photo at 4:25.