The CAMS 31 was a 1920s French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 single-seat fighter biplane flying-boat designed and built by Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine

Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine

Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine, most usually known as CAMS was a French manufacturer of flying boats, founded in Saint-Ouen in November 1920 by Lawrence Santoni...

 (CAMS).

Design and development

The CAMS 31 was a wooden-built two-bay equal span biplane with stabilising floats under each wing and an open cockpit forward of the lower-wing for the pilot. Powered by a Hispano-Suiza 8Fb

Hispano-Suiza 8

The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914 and used by a number of Allied aircraft during the First World War...

 inline piston engine driving a pusher propeller, the engine was strut mounted between the wings. The CAMS 31 was armed with two fixed hull-mounted Vickers machine-guns in the bow.

The CAMS 31 prototype, later designated the CAMS 31 Type 22, first flew in 1922. A second prototype, the CAMS 31 Type 23, flew in 1923 with a reduced-span wing and wider chord but still had the same wing area as the Type 22. Testing proved the flying-boats handled well but were just not suitable as fighters and no more were built.

A mail carrying postal variant was designated CAMS 31P

Variants

CAMS 31 Type 22

Original wing

CAMS 31 Type 23

Reduced span extended chord wing of same area

CAMS 31P

Postal variant

Specifications (CAMS 31 Type 22)

See also