Latécoère 523 French Flying Boat

Based on the Latécoère 522, the Latécoère 523 was an armed maritime patrol aircraft of the Aéronautique Navale. The three aircraft built were named l’Algol, l’Aldébaran and l’Altair.

The Latecoere 523s were delivered to E.6 Squadron, the first of which, named “Altair”, first flew on 21 October 1938. In general, the aircraft resembled the Latecoere 522 model, had a crew of 14, was armed with five 7.5-mm Darne machine guns and could take up to 1350 kg of bombs. The planes were used to patrol over the Atlantic, only one of them survived the Wehrmacht invasion in June 1940 and after repair was transferred to the Vichy Government Air Force. It was transferred to 4.E squadron and relocated to Dakar, where it was abandoned in August 1942 due to lack of spare parts .