The Caudron C.270 ''Luciole'' ("Firefly") was a sporting, touring and trainer aircraft produced in France in the 1930s, derived from the C.230.

Design and construction

It was a conventional biplane with single-bay, unstaggered wings of equal span. The pilot and a single passenger sat in tandem open cockpits. It featured a fabric-covered fuselage in place of the C.230's wooden one, and other refinements including revised control surfaces and undercarriage, and an improved and simplified wing-folding mechanism.

Operational history

The type proved immensely successful, with over 700 machines built in the decade leading up to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Of these, 296 were purchased by the French government for its pilot training programme, the '' Aviation Populaire''. Many examples saw wartime service as liaison aircraft, and those surviving the conflict saw postwar use as glider tugs in the ''Ecole de l'Air''.

On film

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

used two Lucioles in their 1966 film ''

The Blue Max ''The Blue Max'' is a 1966 British war film directed by John Guillermin and starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress, Karl Michael Vogler, and Jeremy Kemp. The film was made in DeLuxe Color and filmed in CinemaScope. The plot i ...

''. These had the rear seat converted into a machine-gun position so that they look like British observation planes. One of these survives on the American registry. *

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

used one Luciole for their film ''

Von Richthofen and Brown ''Von Richthofen and Brown'', alternatively titled ''The Red Baron'', is a 1971 war film directed by Roger Corman and starring John Phillip Law and Don Stroud as Manfred von Richthofen and Roy Brown. Although names of real people are used and ...

'' (released in 1971). *

EMI Films EMI Films was a British film studio and distributor. A subsidiary of the EMI conglomerate, the corporate name was not used throughout the entire period of EMI's involvement in the film industry, from 1969 to 1986, but the company's brief conne ...

used one Luciole for the 1976 film '' Aces High'', this time reconverted to look like a British

Avro 504 The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind tha ...

.Mark Carlson, ''Flying on Film: A Century of Aviation in the Movies, 1912–2012'' Duncan, Oklahoma: BearManor Media, 2012. .

Variants

* C.270 - first production version with

Salmson 7A Between 1920 and 1951 the Société des Moteurs Salmson in France developed and built a series of widely used air-cooled aircraft engines.Gunston 1986, p. 158. Design and development After their successful water-cooled radial engines, develop ...

c radial engine (82 built) ** C.270/1 - version with Salmson 7Ac2 engine * C.271 - version with

Lorraine 5P The Lorraine 5P, also called the Lorraine 100CV, Lorraine 110CV and Lorraine 120CV, was a family of five-cylinder air-cooled radial engines designed and built in France by Lorraine-Dietrich during the 1920s and 1930s. Nominal engine powers were ...

c engine (1 built) ** C.271/2 - version with Lorraine 5Pb engine * C.272 - version with

Renault 4P 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 ...

b inline engine (52 built) ** C.272/2 - version with Renault 4Pci engine and taller, more pointed tail fin (22 built) ** C.272/3 - version with Renault 4Pdi engine and wheel brakes (15 built) ** C.272/4 - version with Renault 4Pei engine and wheel brakes (21 built) ** C.272/5 - version with Renault 4Pgi engine (80 built) * C.273 - version with Michel 4A-14 engine (14 built) * C.274 - version with

Chaise 4B The Chaise 4B is an aircraft engine designed and built in France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories i ...

a engine for 1932 Paris

Salon de l'Aéronautique The Paris Air Show (french: Salon international de l'aéronautique et de l'espace de Paris-Le Bourget, Salon du Bourget) is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in north Paris, France. Organized by the French ...

(1 built) * C.275 - main production version derived from C.272/5 but without wing folding (433 built) * C.276 - version with

de Havilland Gipsy The de Havilland Gipsy is a British air-cooled four-cylinder in-line aircraft engine designed by Frank Halford in 1927 to replace the ADC Cirrus in the de Havilland DH.60 Moth light biplane. Initially developed as an upright 5 litre (3 ...

III engine ** C.276H - version with

Hirth HM 504 The Hirth HM 504 is a four-cylinder air-cooled inverted inline engine. The HM 504 was a popular engine for light aircraft of the 1930s-1940s, and it was used to power a number of Germany's trainer aircraft of World War II. The engine featured a ...

A-2 engine (2 re-engined from C.276) * C.277 - similar to C.272/4 with non-folding wings (9 built) ** C.272R - C.275 re-engined with Renault 4Po3 after the war (1 converted) * C.278 - version with new undercarriage and Salmson 9Nc engine to compete in

Challenge 1932 The Challenge 1932 was the third FAI International Tourist Plane Competition (french: Challenge International de Tourisme), that took place between 12 and August 28, 1932 in Berlin, Germany. The four Challenges, from 1929 to 1934, were major aviat ...

(1 built)