The Caudron C.580 was a French advanced

trainer aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristic ...

intended to prepare pilots for the new

low wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing config ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

fighters of the mid-1930s. It did not go into production and only two were built.

Design

The C.580 was designed to train fighter pilots in a single-seat, low wing monoplane, the standard layout of new

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

in the mid-1930s, It was low-powered but fast, capable of

aerobatics Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aeroplane" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and gl ...

and fitted with a camera in place of a gun. Caudron had already designed several aircraft with this layout; the two closest to the C.580 were the C.430 and C.530 Raphales, though these were two-seat machines. Its

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is unsupported at one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cantilev ...

, two piece, wooden wing was straight tapered in plan to semi-elliptical tips. Each wing was built around a single,

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

box spar and covered with

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

. There were short

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement aroun ...

s near the tips and inboard split flaps. The Caudron C.580 was powered by

Renault 4Pei The Renault 4P, also called the Renault Bengali Junior, was a series of air-cooled 4-cylinder inverted inline aero engines designed and built in France from 1927, which produced from to . Design and development Charles Lindbergh's Atlantic Ocea ...

, an air-cooled, four cylinder, inverted in-line engine which produced for take-off. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

was built around four

ash Ash is the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash is the ...

longeron In engineering, a longeron or stringer is a load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural fram ...

s, joined horizontally by N-form, spruce trellises and with birch ply sides with spruce stiffeners. The upper fuselage surface was curved and the forward fuselage from the engine

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

to the cabin was partly occupied by the fuel tank. Its large, fully glazed cockpit was mostly aft of the

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...

of the wing and was smoothly faired into the rear fuselage with a magnesium upper surface. The tail unit of the C.580 was conventional, with a tapered

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...

mounted at mid-fuselage height carrying inset

elevator An elevator (American English) or lift (Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive traction cables and counterweight systems suc ...

s. The

fin A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. F ...

was also straight tapered and the

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

inset. All the control surfaces were ply covered and unbalanced, so the tailplane's angle of incidence could be adjusted in flight and was interconnected to the flaps. The C.580 had conventional

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

with a track of . Its balloon-tyred mainwheels, under large fairings, were attached by short vertical

oleo strut An oleo strut is a pneumatic air–oil hydraulic shock absorber used on the landing gear of most large aircraft and many smaller ones. This design cushions the impacts of landing and damps out vertical oscillations. It is undesirable for an air ...

s to the wing spars. The tailskid had a case-hardened steel shoe on a rubber block fixed to a pair of welded steel shells.

Development

The Caudron C.580 first flew on 22 December 1934 having been registered as ''F-ANAS'' two days before. In the week beginning 18 March 1935 it went to the ''Centre d'Essais de Matériels Aériens'' at Villacoublay for its official tests, which continued until July that year. It proved to be unstable at high angles-of-attack and had poor spinning characteristics, and was therefore not recommended for military use. A second C.580 was built (''F-ANAT''), flying in March 1935, but was destroyed when it hit a hangar during a take-off accident in May that year. The first prototype was slightly modified during 1935 and redesignated the C.581. It continued to be used for aerobatic flying by Caudron test pilots into 1939. The civil register notes a change in ownership of the first prototype in March 1939.

Specifications

References

Bibliography

* {{Caudron aircraft 1930s French military trainer aircraft C.580 Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1934