Lioré et Olivier LeO H-190

The Lioré et Olivier H-190 was a biplane flying boat aircraft designed and produced by the French aircraft manufacturer Lioré et Olivier.

Developed as a passenger transport, various versions of the H-190 were also developed, including catapult-ready mail planes intended to be launched from transatlantic ocean liners and coastal patrol aircraft.

The sole LeO H-194 was flown by Marc Bernard together with a CAMS 37 flown by René Guilbaud in a long-distance expeditionary flight across Africa in late 1926. They covered 28,000 km (17,000 mi) in three months, covering Morocco, Mali, Nigeria, Belgian Congo, Mozambique and Madagascar.

Design

The Lioré et Olivier H-190 was a single-bay biplane flying boat with un-staggered wings and powered by a single engine that was mounted tractor-fashion underneath the upper wing and supported on struts in the interplane gap. While early-built aircraft had the pilot's open cockpit located aft of the wing, later-built aircraft had the pilot's cockpit relocated forward of the wing. The lines of the hull were designed around the desired marine qualities of the flying boat; it proved itself to handle well when subjected to five-foot waves. To maintain the hull's condition, regular applications of ordinary boat paint were required. While the flying boat's duralumin elements proved fairly durable, its steel fittings were not so long-living, despite the application of a protective baked enamel.

Its construction was conventional for the era and harnessed techniques previously used by the company on earlier seaplanes.