The Caudron C.97 was a two-seat

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 ...

trainer 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 in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

around 1924. A number were used by the Bolivian Air Force.

Design and development

Rather little information has survived on the C.97. Although it looked very similar to the

Caudron C.59 The Caudron C.59 was a French, two-seat biplane with a single engine and a canvas-covered fuselage, produced between 1922 and 1924. Suitable for a variety of roles, more than 1,800 Caudron C.59s were manufactured. Operational history The Caudron ...

and used the same engine, it is not on a list of eight other Caudron designs which shared the latter's

airframe The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospa ...

. The C.97 was a two bay

without stagger and with pairs of parallel interplane struts and

cabane strut In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in ...

s. Its fabric covered, unequal span wings were rectangular in plan apart from a large central cut-out over the

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 ...

to improve upward vision from the rear

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 ...

Aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

s were fitted to the upper wing. Its fuselage was flat sided. An upright, water-cooled

Hispano-Suiza 8 The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza ...

V-8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder (engine), cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V engine, V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette_(manuf ...

, a relatively high compression engine developed during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as aircraft flew to higher altitudes and so able to cope with the high Andean airfields of

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

, sat high in the nose with the fuselage underside curving upwards under it and with a flat fronted, angled

cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...

above the

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 ...

shaft. Two different radiators were used, one of the cylindrical Lamblin type mounted below the fuselage and the other a shallow but wide rectangular one on the underside. The forward open cockpit was close behind the engine and under the wing, with the instructor's position slightly behind the trailing edge. At the rear the

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 ...

was triangular and broad, with a straight edged

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 ...

that reached down to the keel. Since 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 ...

was mounted on top of the fuselage, the

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s had a large cut-out for rudder movement. The C.97 had a fixed tail skid undercarriage with its mainwheels on a single axle sprung from V-form struts to the lower fuselage

longeron In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...

s. The first flight was probably made in early 1924 as the prototype was registered ''F-AGBH'' in April that year. The first Bolivian Air Force machine was delivered on 1 August 1925. The number purchased is not known; ''L'Aéronautique'' in 1927 mentions just one but ''Flight'' in 1928 says "a number". One C.97 was used from mid-1926 by the French-South American Company, based in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. The privately owned ''F-AGBH'' flew in France until 1926, taking part in competitions like the 1924 ''Concours Aviation de Tourisme de l'Aéro-Club de France'' (aviation touring competition of the French Aéro-Club). It was next owned by the Compagnie Française d'Aviation until about 1930, when it was exported to

Operators

;: * Bolivian Air Force

Specifications

References

{{Caudron aircraft C.097 1920s French military trainer aircraft Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1924