Levasseur built the aircraft in 1927, specifically for pilots Charles Nungesser and François Coli for a transatlantic attempt to win the Orteig Prize.

Based on the PL.4 developed for the Aéronavale to operate from the French aircraft carrier Béarn, the PL.8 was a conventional single-bay wood and fabric-covered biplane that carried a crew of two in a side-by-side open cockpit.

Apart from small floats attached directly to the undersides of the lower wing, the main units of the fixed tailskid undercarriage could be jettisoned on takeoff in order to reduce the aircraft's weight.

[3] The aircraft christened L'Oiseau Blanc [N 1] was painted white[N 2] and had the French tricolor markings, with Nungesser's personal World War I flying ace logo: a skull and crossbones, candles and a coffin, on a black heart.

On 20 December 1929, the second PL.8-02, registered F-AJKP to Cie Generale Aeropostale and based at Dakar while flown by pilot Henry Delaunay, was badly damaged when it hit a pothole on landing at Istres and not repaired.

[3] The intended flight path was a great circle route, which would have taken them across the English Channel, over the southwestern part of England and Ireland, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, then south over Nova Scotia, to Boston, and finally to a water landing in New York.