In 1937, the Potez Company,
integrated into the SNCAN (National Company of Aeronautical Constructions
of the North) since the nationalization, presents a commercial quadrimotor:
The Potez 661. Of entirely metallic construction, it is a monoplane
with low cantilever wing capable of take away 12 passengers. It
has 6 portholes per side, one per seat and two access doors on the
left. Two of the seats can be disassembled and replaced with deck
chairs for long flights. It also has a closed cockpit with the pilot
and co-pilot installed side by side. The wing is tapered with a
sloped leading edge and the landing gear retracts into the engine
nacelles. The stabilizer has a strong dihedron and receives two
vertical drifts. He made his first flight on July 18, 1937. Only
one copy will be built. Nicknamed "City of Bamako", it
will be used by the company "Air Afrique" on the Dakar
/ Pointe Noire line.
The potez 662 is a derivative
of the Potez 661. It is powered by 4 Gnome and Rhône 14Mars
from 680hp to 4000m equipped with three-blade propellers with variable
pitch. The performance is greatly improved. Of identical design,
the structure is however reinforced to adapt to the constraints
related to the more powerful engines and the mass of the apparatus
which passes from 6326kg to 8380kg. The wing weight is logically
higher: it goes from 100kg / m² to 130kg / m². The wing
is modified with a straight leading edge and a trailing edge inclined
on the outer parts of the wing. The range is improved by adopting
additional tanks with a capacity of 6870 liters of fuel.
Built for Air France, it
made its first flight on July 27, 1938 in Meaulte, piloted by the
SNCAN pilot: Mr Labouchère. After the outbreak of hostilities,
the apparatus is placed at the disposal of the Minister Secretary
of State for War in 1939. At the Armistice, he is in the Free Zone,
and is requisitioned by the Vichy Government in July 1940. Leaves
his camouflage painting and registered F-ARAY, it is used by Marshal
Pétain as a liaison device until July 25, 1941. He is then
assigned to the new Minister of War, General Hutzinger. He had the
apparatus painted, the motto of the Second Army he commanded in
1940: "The most is in us"
It is at the return of an
inspection tour in AFN, that the plane, from Algiers and to Vichy,
crashed on November 12, 1941 in the town of Bréau-et-Salagosse
in the Gard . General Huntziger and the six other passengers and
crews perished in the accident. It seems that it is the frost which
weighs down the apparatus and led to its fall. A commemorative stela
immortalizes the accident near the point of fall and another one
was erected a kilometer from the Minier Pass.
