The Caudron C.362 and the almost identical C.366 were single-seat

racing aircraft Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previ ...

built in 1933 by

Caudron The Société des Avions Caudron was a French aircraft company founded in 1909 as the Association Aéroplanes Caudron Frères by brothers Gaston and René Caudron. It was one of the earliest aircraft manufacturers in France and produced planes for ...

to compete in the

Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe The Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe was an international aeronautical speed competition instituted on 25 August 1909 by the French oil magnate Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe. The race was reinstated three times through the years at the initiative of the ...

competition.

Design

The C.362 and C.366 were single-seat,

low-wing 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 planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

monoplanes with a fixed undercarriage. Construction was of wood, with a single-spar wing of symmetrical

airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...

section, the spar having

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

flanges and a

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

web. It was equipped with split trailing edge flaps. The principal difference between the two types was the powerplant employed. The C.362 was powered by a high compression ratio version of the Renault ''Bengali'' air-cooled inverted four-cylinder inline engine developing while the C.366 was powered by a Regnier air-cooled inverted 6-cylinder inline. It had been intended to use this engine for all three aircraft, but development problems with it resulted in the use of the Renault engine in two of the airframes that had been constructed. The type was developed into the Caudron C.450 and C.460 racers, which won the ''Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe'' in 1934, 1935 and 1936.

Operational history

During trials for the ''Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe'' the C.362 was flown by Caudron's chief pilot Raymond Delmotte to establish two world speed records for light aircraft, covering at and at On 24 May

Ludovic Arrachart Ludovic Arrachart (15 August 1897, Besançon - 24 May 1933, Maisons) was a French aviator. His long-distance flights made him a pioneer of intercontinental aviation. He notably beat two world records : first flying a Breguet 19 from Étampes to ...

was killed when his C.362 crashed after an engine failure while he was taking part in the trial flights for the ''Coupe''. The following day the C.366, flown by Valot, was badly damaged in a landing accident, forcing its withdrawal from the competition. The remaining aircraft, flown by Delmotte, finished second in the contest, completing the in 6h 52m 5s, a speed of . On 26 December 1934 Delmotte set a new record over of , and on 2 May 1935 Delmotte raised this to . The C.366 was flown to second place in the 1934 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurth by Louis Masotte, fitted with a Levasseur variable-pitch propeller.

Specifications (C.362)

References

{{Caudron aircraft C.362 Racing aircraft Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft 1930s French civil aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1933