The Caproni Ca.70 was a two-seat

night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used ...

and ground attack

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

produced in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

in 1925. It was the only Italian aircraft designed from the outset as a night fighter.

Design

The

Caproni Caproni, also known as ''Società de Agostini e Caproni'' and ''Società Caproni e Comitti'', was an Italian aircraft manufacturer. Its main base of operations was at Taliedo, near Linate Airport, on the outskirts of Milan. Founded by Giova ...

company designed the Ca.70 to ensure good low-speed handling and good visibility from both cockpits, without any of the aircrafts structural elements obstructing the view of either crewman. Its two wings were of unequal span, and it had tailskid landing gear, an unusual feature of which was an oleo- pneumatic

shock absorber A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Mos ...

on the main landing gear which allowed the wheels to travel forward in their linkage while the plane was taxiing. The 9-cylinder, 313-

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after Jame ...

(420-

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are th ...

)

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments tur ...

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 ...

gave the Ca.70 a top speed of per hour. Armament consisted of two fixed forward-firing 7.7-millimeter

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more men to move and ...

s and a flexible 7.7-millimeter Lewis machine gun on a

Scarff ring The Scarff ring was a type of machine gun mounting developed during the First World War by Warrant Officer (Gunner) F. W. Scarff of the Admiralty Air Department for use on two-seater aircraft. The mount incorporated bungee cord suspension in el ...

in the rear cockpit.Green and Swanborough, pp. 107.

Operational history

The Ca.70 first flew in 1925. After the Caproni company finished its tests, it turned the aircraft over to the ''

Regia Aeronautica The Italian Royal Air Force (''Regia Aeronautica Italiana'') was the name of the air force of the Kingdom of Italy. It was established as a service independent of the Regio Esercito, Royal Italian Army from 1923 until 1946. In 1946, the mon ...

'' (Italian Royal Air Force), which tested it at

Guidonia Montecelio Guidonia Montecelio (), commonly known as Guidonia, is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio, central Italy. Geography The municipality of Guidonia Montecelio, formed by the main towns of Guidonia and Montecelio, l ...

in 1926, and the Ca.70 performed well, with good handling and performance. However, the ''Regia Aeronautica'' had little interest in procuring a two-seat night fighter, and no further examples were built. Caproni used the design of the Ca.70 for as the basis for a derivative, the Caproni Ca.71 prototype of 1927.

Operators

; :''

Specifications (Ca.70)

Notes

References

*Green, William, and Gordon Swanborough. ''The Complete Book of Fighters: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Every Fighter Aircraft Built and Flown''. New York: SMITHMARK Publishers, 1994. . *
The Caproni “Ca 70” Biplane
. ''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can b ...