what is it?
The Loire-Nieuport LN.40 aircraft were a family of French naval dive-bombers for the Aeronavale in the late 1930s, which saw service during World War II.
How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · inverted gull wing · 14 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 88 years ago, in 1938.
- Top speed is 2.9× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 14 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
- Range of 1,200 km: 7× Amsterdam to Brussels.
- Can fly 1.1× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).
piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1938-07-06
- introduced
- 1939
- retired
- 1940
- status
- retired
- number built
- 99
- role
- dive bomber
- makers
- SNCAO
- engines
- 1× Hispano-Suiza 12Xcrs
- crew
- 1
- length
- 9.8 m
- wingspan
- 14 m
- height
- 3.5 m
- max take-off weight
- 2,835 kg
- top speed
- 380 km/h
- cruise speed
- 299 km/h
- range
- 1,200 km
- ceiling
- 9,500 m
- wings
- inverted gull wing
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q1808980, Wikipedia: Loire-Nieuport LN.401 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.