PL.7 wing experiments aboard Béarn

The PL.7 program produced 46 aircraft, and the French Navy tested several wing arrangements before choosing a standard. It ordered aircraft with shortened and intermediate spans before settling on roughly 16.5 metres and modifying earlier machines to the same standard. The trials show an iterative attempt to make the torpedo bomber practical for Béarn rather than treating the first design as fixed. A watertight, boat-shaped fuselage and small underwing floats reflected concern about survival after a forced landing at sea. Those flotation features also reveal how carrier scarcity made the recovery of crews especially important to French planners.