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Levasseur PL.400

1930s French aircraft

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 9, 2025
Entity authorityQ65118837 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Levasseur PL.400 was an artillery observation / liaison aircraft built by Société Pierre Levasseur Aéronautique in the late 1930s.

The PL.400 was a high-wing monoplane of wood and metal construction. The aircraft first flew on December 19, 1939, but was later burned intentionally in June 1940 to avoid capture by German forces.

PL.400

The first prototype, powered by a 220 hp (160 kW) Potez 9C radial engine; one built.

PL.401

The second prototype, powered by a 220 hp (160 kW) Renault 6Q-09 in-line engine; completed but not flown before the French collapse in 1940.

Editorial summary

“Levasseur PL.400” enters the record as 1930s French aircraft. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Levasseur, 1930s and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 1940—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Levasseur, 1930s and French.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Levasseur PL.400” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Levasseur, 1930s and French provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q65118837. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939 and 1940.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Levasseur PL.400”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Levasseur PL.400 primary sources, Levasseur PL.400 archive and Levasseur research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Levasseur PL.400”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Levasseur PL.400” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.