Potez 75

History of Potez 75

In the 1950s, a rebuilding French military industry focused on missile-carrying fighter jets, a product of an era that attempted to pair the "SS.10" wire-guided anti-tank missile with an airframe specifically designed to carry it in the " Potez 75" aircraft. The design of this missile is credited to Jean Bastien-Thiry of Nord Aviation, it was a specialized early tank killer, the enemy in the west was the Soviet Union and its formidable tank formations Will largely herald the future demise of Europe.

About 30,000 of these missiles were eventually produced and used by the French and US militaries (known as "MGM-21A"). The missile directly spawned the Potez 75 aircraft designed to carry it but the plane was a one-off prototype and was not mass-produced by any world power.

The fuselage of the final plane was board-side, with a special "missile processor" sitting in the nose section and the pilot sitting in a raised position behind him. As a result, the two cockpits are layered and have individual, light-framed canopies that provide fairly good visibility from inside the cockpit (the pilot's position was originally an open-air position). A series of machine guns are mounted on the nose section in front of the missile head. The main plane of the wing is straight, the top end is truncated, the double arm assembly extends aft from the trailing edge of each wing, each arm terminates at the vertical tail of the tail, and these are further connected by a single horizontal plane overhead . As a prototype, the tricycle landing gear (designed for aerodynamic efficiency) is fixed (non-retractable) in flight.

The aircraft is finished with an all-metal construction.

The Potez 75 was unique for a fighter of the era, with its single-engine unit driving a three-blade variable-pitch propeller unit in a "thrust" configuration at the rear of the fuselage - exposing the front of the fuselage to the plane With clear vision and fixed forward weapons. The engine of choice became the in-house Potez 8D.

32 V8 inverted air-cooled piston engine, 480 hp.

The proposed standard fixed armament became a nose-mounted 4 x 7.5mm MAC 1934 machine gun. In addition, the aircraft was supposed to carry several Northern anti-tank missiles.

The dimensions of the aircraft include a barrel length of 30 feet, a wingspan of 43 feet, and a height of 8.9 feet. Curb weight is 4,000 lbs and MTOW is 5,300 lbs.

The first flight of the prototype eventually took place on June 10, 1953, but subsequent tests showed the aircraft to be a poor missile carrier/missile launch platform. To save the plane, its initial role on the battlefield was changed to "ground attack", with provisions for the transport of up to eight air-to-surface missiles under the wings. In 1956, during the bloody Algerian War (1954-1962), the prototype entered active direct combat service with the French army in this modified form and finally proved its worth - earning 15 Pre-production order for the fuselage. However, in the face of a reduction in the French defense budget the following year, this rather novel new fighter jet was excluded from procurement and its development was eventually halted.

It flew for a short time in 1958, crashed in September of that year, and was subsequently dismantled and destroyed.

Specification

Basic

Production

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Performance

Armor

Changes