Brothers on the Wing
The Caudron aircraft company was established in 1909 and was among the earliest of French aircraft manufacturers.
The company was named after the Caudron brothers, Alphonse “Gaston” (1882-1915) and René (1884-1959), who founded it.
Caudron operated from 1909 until 1944 and produced a number of aircraft designs of both civilian and military categories. The company became quite famous internationally and several Caudron aircraft types saw great success on export markets or built under license.
Caudron became most well known for sports and training aircraft. The company operated a flying school as early as 1910 and were a major player in various categories of air racing in the 1920s and 1930s.
During the interwar period, the French Air Ministry wanted to consolidate the nation’s aviation industry from numerous smaller companies to a smaller and more managable number. The auto manufacturer, Renault, was starting to branch into aviation in the interwar period and the air ministry put pressure on Caudron to join forces with Renault.
In 1933, Renault purchased a majority share of Caudron and the aircraft manufacturer became a subsidiary of Renault. In 1937, Renault bought the remaining Caudron shares.
During the Second World War, Caudron-Renault produced the German designed Messerschmitt Bf-108 and Siebel Si-204 aircraft as well as members of their own Simoun and Goéland utility aircraft families.
The Caudron-Renault aircraft factory was destroyed by Allied bombing in September of 1943.
In 1944, the French government nationalised what was left of Caudron and merged it into SNCAC (Société Nationale de Construction aéronautique du Centre), a company that was created in 1936 by nationalising and merging the Farman and Hanriot aircraft companies.
The story of the Caudron aircraft company came to an end with it being merged into SNCAC.
Throughout its existence, Caudron was well respected as an aircraft manufacturer. Its aircraft were known to be well designed with good handling characterstics and performance.
An early example of the quality of aircraft that Caudron could produce was their model G.3. The G.3 was one of the first mass produced French designed aircraft and it enjoyed popularity with pilots of many nations both during the First World War and for several years following the conflict.
Let’s spend some time with the Caudron G.3:
Able and Available
The Caudron G.3 first flew in late 1913 and entered French air force service in early 1914. As such, at least one squadron of the type was active at the outbreak of the First World War in late July of 1914.
The G.3 was designed primarily as a reconnaissance platform. It was a job that the aircraft was well suited to as it could climb well and was very stable and controllable.
The performance and handling of the G.3 made it a widely popular aircraft and it was ordered in large quantities shortly following the outbreak of the conflict. This included Caudron granting licenses for production of the type in Great Britain and Italy. Almost 2,500 examples of the G.3 were built between French, British and Italian production lines.
The popularity of the G.3 is not surprizing when one considers that it was a well developed aircraft design at the outbreak of World War One.
The G.3 was part of Caudron’s G series of aircraft. The initial Type G prototype and the more developed G.2 had their first flights in 1913. Only one Type G prototype was built, while ten of the G.2 model were constructed. By the time the G.2 was developed into the G.3, the aircraft was a well refined and matured flying machine with the bulk of its shortcomings already addressed.
The G.3 represented the mid point of G series development and was the last single engined member of that aircraft family. The G.3 was used as the basis of the much larger two engined G.4 bomber of 1915 and the G.6 reconnaissance aircraft of 1916.
A shared design aspect of the G series that was a contributing factor to the G.3’s performance and handling was the wing design.
The G series aircraft all had wings of sesquiplane design. the term sesquiplane comes from Latin and translates into “one and a half wings”.
Unlike a tradtional biplane, where the wings are of identical or near identical size, sesquiplanes had the lower wing much reduced in size compared to the upper wing. In a sesquiplane, all lateral control of the aircraft comes from the upper wing, while the lower wing is limited to providing lift. In the case of traditional biplanes, lateral control of the aircraft could be done with both wings.
Through the First World War and the early interwar period, sesquiplane designs offered some advantages over biplane and monoplane designs of the time.
The two main advantages sesquiplanes had over biplanes of the day were weight savings through using less material in construction and the elimination of airflow interference between upper and lower wings.
In biplanes of the era, the airflow of the upper and lower sets of wings interfering with each other could create control issues. With sesquiplanes, the control surfaces on the upper wing were well clear of any airflow interference from the lower wing and this resulted in better control of the aircraft by the pilot.
Early monoplanes tended to be quite fragile and their wings required external bracing with wires to give them structural strength. Sesquiplanes had advantages over early monoplanes as they could provide a level of weight savings similar to monoplanes, but still had the structural strength advantages that biplanes had over monoplanes of the time.
For the reconnaissance role, the sesquiplane design gave an improved downward view as the result of the much smaller lower wing.
In the case of the G.3, the better lateral control provided by the sesquiplane design was important as lateral movement of the aircraft was still controlled by wing warping rather than separate ailerons on the wings. Wing warping was an older method of controlling the aircraft that was done by physically twisting the the wing. It worked, but reduced the useful life of the wing significantly.
Separate ailerons were eventually designed into the G.3 and aircraft from later production batches benefited from that change. The main benefit was that the wing could be built stronger as the fexibility required of the wing structure for warping was not needed with ailerons.
On the Front Lines
The Caudron G.3 served widely on the front lines of the First World War until the summer of 1916, when France withdrew the type to second line duties.
The fact that the G.3 was already in service at the outbreak of the First World War meant that it was outclassed and became obsolete rather quickly. In spite of this, the aircraft gave a good account of itself in the conflict.
The climbing ability of the G.3 made the type very popular with Italian military units who were tasked with flying over the alpine regions in the northern reaches of the country. Italian forces used the G.3 widely until 1917.
As with the Italian forces, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) of Great Britain also used the G.3 as late as 1917.
The G.3 was operated on both the Eastern and Western fronts of World War One, as well as the Middle East Theatre of Operations and the Balkan regions.
While France, Great Britain and Italy were the main users of the G.3 during the war; the aircraft was also used by Australia, Romania, Russia and the USA during the conflict.
While the G.3 was generally operated in an unarmed configuration, it could be fitted with defensive guns and a light load of bombs.
From mid 1916, the G.3 was withdrawn from the front lines as it had become outclassed by newer aircraft and very vulnerable to attack from both air and ground fire.
As it left the role of reconnaissance, the G.3 was converted to training duties and continued to give good service in that regard well past the end of the war.
Fledglings and Firsts
The First World War showed the benefits that aircraft could bring to a military and many nations formed air arms. In early years, those air arms were typically branches of a nation’s army or navy; fully independant air forces were not so common at the time.
Through its years in service, the G.3 was flown by air arms of around 30 nations. For some of those nations, the G.3 was their first military aircraft. One example of this is the Colombian air force, which was established with the G.3 aircraft as trainers in the early 1920s.
A particularly interesting chapter in the G.3 story took place in Portugal. Just after the First World War, the Portuguese Army Military Aeronautical Service was established and the G.3 was one of that service’s main training aircraft.
Part of the Portuguese Army Military Aeronautical Service was Parque de Material Aeronáutico (PMA), which translated into Aeronautics Material Depot in English. PMA was responsible for providing, storing, repairing, and manufacturing aeronautical material for the service.
The G.3 was very popular in Portugese service. Good handling and undemanding maintenance made it popular enough that PMA built 50 fresh examples of the type between 1922 and 1924.
The Caudron G.3 was used in some notable “firsts” in aviation. Three of those came with Swiss aviation pioneer, François Durafour (1888-1967), at the controls.
In May of 1919, Durafour used a G.3 to make the first commercial flight between Paris and Geneva; it was an air mail flight and lasted four and half hours.
On July 30 of 1921, Durafour flew a G.3 from Lausanne and landed it on the slope of Dôme du Goûter, next to Mont Blanc, in the Western Alps. At 4,331 metres (14,209 feet), it was the highest that an aircraft had landed at and taken off from. It was also the first time an aircraft had landed on and taken off from snow. It was a record that stood for 30 years.
A G.3 was used by French aviatrix, Adrienne Bolland (1895-1975), in a highly risky crossing of the Andes mountains in 1921. While it was not the first crossing of the Andes by aircraft, it was a significant contributor to Bolland going down in history as one of France’s most accomplished and decorated female aviators.
Bolland was employed by Caudron to demonstrate the company’s aircraft in South America. On April 1 of 1921, she flew a G.3 from Argentina to Chile. The flight lasted just over four hours and, in many ways, it was a miracle that the flight did not end in tragedy.
Bolland knew the G.3 was far from ideal to undertake such a flight in unforgiving surroundings and she requested Caudron provide her with an aircraft better suited to the task. Caudron told her it was not possible to send her a different aircraft and so she had little choice but to use the G.3.
She had no map and little knowledge of the area she had to fly through. Additionally, she would need to fly through treacherous valleys as the maximum operating height for the G.3 was well below the summits of many mountains she would be flying near to.
In spite of very nearly colliding with a mountain side, Bolland completed her flight successfully. To her good fortune, she did not need to repeat the flight in the opposite direction. The aircraft she flew was sold in Chile and she was able to return to Argentina via train.
What Remains and Learning More
The Caudron G.3 had remarkable staying power for an aircraft that was already in service at the outbreak of the First World War. Examples of the G.3 were still known to be flying in military service in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Portuguese military, for example, retired the last of their G.3 fleet in 1933.
The G.3 not only served a long time, it also served very widely. Beyond having many operators in Europe and South America, the G.3 was also used by the armies of Republican China and Imperial Japan. The G.3 was also operated in Australia and New Zealand.
Original examples of the G.3 are preserved in museums in Belgium, Brasil, Finland, France, Great Britain and Venzuela.
Flying replicas of the G.3 exist in the Czech Republic, France and the USA.
These two links will take you to articles about François Durafour and Adrienne Bolland. The articles talk about their accomplishments with the Caudron G.3 and more.
This article at the Museu do Ar website talks a bit about the G.3 in Portugal.
This article at the Aeropedia website gives a lot of detail about the G.3 in Australia and New Zealand.
Pickled Wings 