Photo Potez 540/542

[Stig Jarlevik]

Clint/Tom

The whole F-AKxx range seems to have been something outside the control of the regular French civil authorities. Most of the known registrations applied were for prototypes and thus assigned to the Industry, but a few aircraft used by either the Government or Ministry of Air were also included. Sadly those records were lost during the war.

Basically the only way of finding anything new is to locate logbooks, photographs etc. From what I can see the F-AKAx to F-AKGx ranges were only used for prototypes. By 1935/36 when the range F-AKHx began to be used we see the first non-prototypes appear and they then also appear in the ledgers with a full CofR.

The photo on e-bay shows an aircraft so far unknown in any lists I have seen making the photo on page 243 in the Morane book, as mentioned by Clint, rather unique. Quite interesting the author makes no comment about that, except saying its a rare photo of the MS 407. It is a rare photo of everything. The Stinson seen was registered to Etat Francais.

It also seems the range ended in 1938 (possibly 1939) with the F-AKIx range.

With regard to our Potez it is an aircraft taken from a military batch. Since the 540s used by the "Escadrille Ministérielle" all seems to have been registered in the general register, perhaps this is an aircraft bailed back to Potez for for some unknown tests or used by some other agency. I find it hard to understand why CEMA (or does it have another meaning as well?) would have anything to do with any aircraft at all as listed in the text.

Cheers
Stig

[musec04]

Hi Stig,



Centre d'Essais du Material Aerien seems to fit.I see no reason why the machines listed wouldn't be based there. I'm thinking you possibly had something else in mind?



Regards,


Clint

[Stig Jarlevik]

Aha

Well in my books, CEMA is the French commander in chief of all armed forces...

Cheers
Stig