__NOTOC__ The Caudron C.690 was a single-seat

training 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 ...

developed in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in the late 1930s to train fighter pilots to handle high-performance aircraft. It was a conventional low-wing

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 ...

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 ...

that bore a strong resemblance to designer

Marcel Riffard Marie André Marcel Riffard (30 November 1886 – 9 July 1981) was a French aeronautical engineer. He designed fighter aircraft and air racers, as well as airplanes for postal delivery and medical transport. He also designed racing cars and land- ...

's racer designs of the same period. Caudron attempted to attract overseas sales for the aircraft, but this resulted in orders for only two machines - one from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and the other from the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In the meantime, the first of two

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

s was destroyed in a crash that killed René Paulhan, Caudron's chief test pilot. Despite this, the ''

Armée de l'Air The French Air and Space Force (, , ) is the air force, air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the Fr ...

'' eventually showed interest in the type, and ordered a batch of a slightly refined design. The first of these was not delivered until April 1939, and only 15 C.690Ms were supplied before the outbreak of

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

Variants

;C.690: Single-seat fighter trainer aircraft. Four aircraft built. ;C.690M: Slightly refined version for the ''

Armee de l'Air The French Air and Space Force (, , ) is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. Formed in 1909 as the ("Aeronautical Service"), a service arm of the French Army, it became an independent military branch in 1934 as the French Air Fo ...

''. Only 15 aircraft were built.

Operators

; *

; * Imperial Japanese Air Force - One aircraft only (KXC1) . ; *

soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

- One aircraft only.

Specifications (C.690M)

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

Variants

Operators

Specifications (C.690M)

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading