The Latécoère 440 was a single-engined, high-winged float plane built as a coastal defence aircraft for the French Navy in the early 1930s.
At the end of the 1920s the French Navy saw the need for a coastal defence aircraft, capable of attacking hostile ships with torpedoes or bombs at distances up to 400 km from the coast.
They preferred an aircraft that operated from water and, to be capable of torpedo launches, this required a floatplane design rather than a flying boat.
The two types were very similar in appearance and dimensions, though the 440 had different crew accommodation to suit its military purpose, a slightly uprated version of the single Hispano-Suiza 12 engine and a revised fin.
The cabin rear was glazed and extended into a deep cut-out in the wing trailing edge to improve upward visibility.
[1] Long floats, each with a displacement of 5.2 m3 and a single step were mounted on pairs of very wide chord vertical members that joined the lift struts at the same point as those going upwards to the centre section.
[1] The date of the first flight is uncertain, but the first of the two 440s was delivered to the CEPA (Centre d'Expérimentation Pratique de l'Aviation Navale) at St-Raphael on 22 September 1931 and the second that December.