| C.270 Luciole | |
|---|---|
| |
| Role | Sports plane |
| Manufacturer | Caudron |
| Designer | Paul Deville |
| First flight | 1931 |
| Number built | >700 |
The Caudron C.270 Luciole ("Firefly") was a sporting, touring and trainer aircraft produced in France in the 1930s, derived from the C.230.
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.
The type proved immensely successful, with over 700 machines built in the decade leading up to World War II. 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.
General characteristics
Performance
