The Loire 250 was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 single-seat fighter

Fighter aircraft

A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...

 monoplane

Monoplane

A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...

 designed and built by Loire Aviation of St. Nazaire.

Design and development

The Loire 250 was built to meet a requirement for an single-seat fighter prototypes to undergo a fly-off competition with the Dewoitine D.513 and Morane-Saulnier MS.405. The Loire 250 was an all-metal low-wing monoplane powered by a 1000 hp Hispano-Suiza 14Ha-7a radial engine with a single enclosed cockpit and a retractable conventional landing gear

Conventional landing gear

thumb|The [[Piper PA-18|Piper Super Cub]] is a popular taildragger aircraft.thumb|right|A [[Cessna 150]] converted to taildragger configuration by installation of an after-market modification kit....

with a tailwheel. Only one prototype was produced, it first flew 27 September 1935, it was modified to improve performance before the fly-off but failed to gain a production order. The prototype was unarmed but it was intended to fit two 20mm cannons and two 7.5mm machine-guns if the type entered production.