Building on the success of
the Potez 36, then 43, the Potez company launched in 1934, a lightweight
aircraft of simple design: the Potez 60. This comes at a time when
the Ministry of the air seeks to develop the Popular Aviation in
France , to train pilots able to integrate if necessary, the ranks
of the French Air Force.
The Potez 60 is a "parasol"
wing-shaped monoplane and a wide-track fixed train. The apparatus,
is of an "affordable" cost, 36 000 F with possibility
for the Aéro_Clubs to acquire it for 17 300 F via a system
of premium with the purchase, It is constructed entirely of wood
and canvas, and the maintenance is reduced to the maximum. The instructor
and student sit in two cockpits in tandem, the more remote being
reserved for the apprentice. The instrumentation is minimalist and
the apparatus being deprived of radio, the communication between
the two crew members them had to be done by signs or by acoustic
horn. It is powered by an air-cooled three-cylinder Potez-Anzani
3B 3-cylinder 60ch engine with a two-blade wooden propeller. Its
wing surface and low weight allow it to fly very slowly, a very
popular quality for a school plane. He received the diminutive of
"Grasshopper" to illustrate the rebounds he often made
during landings at the hands of inexperienced pilots ...
The Ministry of Air ordered
250 aircraft but only 155 will be built and distributed in different
Aero-clubs of France. The Popular Front being at the origin of this
desire to promote Light Aviation, the Potez 60 delivered in Aero-Club
were predominantly red ... The entire production will be carried
out in the workshops of SNCAN Méaulte ( National Society
of Aeronautical Constructions of the North), which regrouped, after
the nationalization, the factories Amiot, ANF Les Mureaux, CAMS
and Potez.
At the declaration of War,
the Potez 60, were seized, like many other civil aircrafts, by the
Air Force and poured into the flying schools, but after the Armistice,
many planes were destroyed.
In 1945, at liberation, the
production resumed a time to fill the losses due to the conflict.
