The Caudron Type K was a French

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

with a very powerful, twenty cylinder

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

. It took part in a French seaplane competition in 1913, but was lost in a take-off accident during the competition.

Design

Before the Type K Caudron had built two pusher floatplanes, the single seat Caudron-Fabre

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

and a two-seat version of it for

Claude Graham-White Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight, during the ''Daily Mail''-sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race. Early life Claude Grahame-White was born ...

. The two seat Type K was a significantly larger aircraft with three bay wings, rather than two, and a much more powerful Anzani engine than before. Nonetheless it had shared many of the characteristics of early Caudron designs, with unequal span, two spar wings and open frame

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

s bearing twin

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. Fin ...

s and

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

s. The Type K had rectangular plan wings with slightly angled tips. The upper wing span was 45% greater than that of the lower; on each side the upper and lower wings were joined by three sets of vertical, parallel interplane struts and another parallel pair leaning outwards and upwards to brace the outer parts of the upper wing. A , twenty cylinder, four-row air-cooled

Anzani 20 The 1913 20-cylinder Anzani air-cooled radial engine was the first four row radial and one of the most powerful engines of its period, though few were used. Development By 1912 Anzani had built the world's first two row radial engine, the 10 cy ...

was mounted in pusher configuration centrally between the wings, driving a

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

between the twin tailbooms. A cylindrical petrol tank was mounted laterally ahead of the engine and over the wing

leading edge The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, ...

, at the back of a short fuselage pod in which the crew of two sat side-by-side in an open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

. This was a flat sided structure, with its upper surface curving sharply downwards. The rear part of the Type K's fuselage was an open structure with two girders, each vertically cross braced and converging in profile, parallel to each other in plan and cross-linked horizontally at the tail. This was fairly standard on the Caudron's of the period but was elaborated on the Type K by another long pair of members from the lower wing upwards; these secured the posts of a tall, narrow pair of constant

chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

s with quadrantal tips. The

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small 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 and gyroplane ...

, approximately rectangular in plan but cut away for rudder movement, was placed on the upper tail girders. The Type K was a pure

, with no permanent land wheels. The floats were long (more than half the fuselage length), single stepped and rectangular in section, wide and deep.

Operational history

In 1913 the French Aero Club organised a seaplane contest. This was held between 24 and 31 August in Deauville and attracted aircraft from ten different French manufacturers. Some sent more than one model, for example, the Caudron Types J and K. René Caudron piloted the latter and his engineer was the designer of its very new engine,

Alessandro Anzani Anzani was an engine manufacturer founded by the Italian Alessandro Anzani (1877–1956), which produced proprietary engines for aircraft, cars, boats, and motorcycles in factories in Britain, France and Italy. Overview From his native Italy, A ...

. Though not an amphibian, the Type K, classified as an ''avion de bord'', could take-off from a wooden runway using a pair of discardable bogies and it won a prize of 6,000 Francs by getting aloft after a run. Whilst taking off on the 26 August, a float attachment failed when the Type K hit a large wave, causing the aircraft to capsize. Gaston Caudron, flying the Type J, successfully put down on the water to rescue the crew.

Specifications

References

{{Caudron aircraft Floatplanes 1910s French aircraft TK Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1913 Single-engined pusher aircraft