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Thread: Caproni Ca.3 stats

  1. #1

    Default Caproni Ca.3 stats

    I'm looking for historical stats on the climb rate and speed of the Caproni Ca.3 at different altitudes. I very interested in these altitudes:

    Sea level
    1000m
    2000m
    3000m
    4000m
    5000m

  2. #2

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    Is this useful? It says nothing about the altitudes though...


    Crew 4

    Propulsion 3 Piston Engines
    Engine Model Isotta-Fraschini V.4B
    Engine Power (each) 112 kW 150 hp

    Speed 137 km/h 74 kts
    85 mph
    Service Ceiling 4.844 m 15.892 ft
    Range 600 km 324 NM
    373 mi.

    Empty Weight 2.300 kg 5.071 lbs
    max. Takeoff Weight 3.800 kg 8.378 lbs

    Wing Span 22,74 m 74,6 ft
    Wing Area 95,6 m˛ 1029 ft˛
    Length 11,05 m 36,3 ft
    Height 3,70 m 12,1 ft

    First Flight 1916
    Production Status out of production
    Total Production >250
    Developed from Caproni Ca.1 / Ca.2

    Data for (Version) Caproni Ca.36
    Variants Ca.34, Ca.35, Ca.36, Ca.36M, CCa.36S, Ca.56a

    Found it here:

    http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acdata_p...oni_ca3_en.php


    Last edited by Bluedevil; 09-28-2011 at 03:53. Reason: added info

  3. #3

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    Found some more stuff ... This might shed some light on the altitude issue :



    The Caproni three-engined bomber appeared in 1914, powered by three Gnome rotary engines. The production version, equipped with three 100 hp fixed in-line Fiat A 10 engines entered service in the summer of 1915, and it was the most effective bomber of any air force, excluding the Russian Sikorsky.

    The same model remained in production throughout the war, first in its 350 version (with two Fiats and one Isotta Fraschini engine) and then as the Ca 450 hp, with three Isotta Fraschini V.4B 180 hp engines. Several hundreds were built, and it equipped bomber squadrons 1 to 15 (of which 11a Squadriglia operated in Albania, and 12a Squadriglia in Lybia, while 3a, 14a and 15a were sent to France in 1918) and 201a Squadriglia of the Naval Aviation with single examples going to home defence flights.

    All designations such as Ca.31, Ca.32 etc. are spurious post-war reconstructions: this bomber was exclusively called Ca 450 hp or Ca.3. The first models had a three-men crew, formed by two pilots and an observer-gunner in the nose, but all later Capronis had a fouth crew member, a gunner who operated from a turret rising above the central engine.

    Its production was scaled down in 1918, but as its successor, the Ca.5 600 hp, proved a failure, it was hurriedly put back in production in the Savigliano plant. The last version was the ca.3 Modificato, with folding wings, that was even reintroduced in production in 1923, some 150 of them being produced for the Regia Aeronautica and serving in bomber units until 1927, 13 years after its initial flight.

    Many Caproni were used at Foggia for the instruction of American pilots, who also used it operationally, with exrtreme distinction, flying in Squadriglie 1a, 2a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a, 8a, 9a and 10a.



    Aircraft and Flight Characteristics
    Length

    11.05 m

    Height

    3.85 m

    Empty Weight

    2,650 kg

    Loaded Weight

    3,650 kg

    Maximum Speed

    137 km/hr.

    Wing Span

    22.74 m

    Ceiling

    4,100 m

    Climb



    To 1,000 m

    6 minutes

    To 2,000 m

    14 minutes

    To 3,000 m

    26 minutes

    Endurance

    4 h 45 min



    You can find the original info here : http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/caproni3.htm

  4. #4

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    And while I'm at it :

    Nice pictures of the Caproni to be found here :

    http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/...he-air-caproni

  5. #5

  6. #6

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    That second post helps a lot (though I think the times have been rounded off). Now I just need to find some speed ratings that show altitude as well.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Attila57 View Post
    I get:

    accesso negato 403

  8. #8

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    I am so doing a conversion to one of these when the minis come out!!

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Ca.3371.jpg 
Views:	191 
Size:	103.3 KB 
ID:	23815

    Bring on the C damage deck!!

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Oberst Hajj View Post
    I get:

    accesso negato 403
    I open it without problem but there is only another text in italian The data you asked are all in my post

  10. #10

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    Nothing shows up for me in your post If I go to edit your post, I can see you entered in links and photos, but they do not show up for me. If I try to copy them directly to my browser, I get that same error.

  11. #11

  12. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Oberst Hajj View Post
    I am so doing a conversion to one of these when the minis come out!!
    The 25mm version - I think converting the Shapeways one would be easier. No repainting, no cutting off the rear gun.

    See http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...ll=1#post79816



    I'm seriously considering converting my Shapeways Ca3 to this configuration - then buying the new one as a replacement. Only one was fitted with a 25mm pom-pom though, unlike the torpedo version where two were converted.

    One of the 201st Sq had a 37mm used for train-busting - from photos possibly one of the torpedo bombers (SUFFICIT ANIMUS 2331) was converted to this configuration - and this was the standard armament of the 16th Sq (22 aircraft) .





    I've found another picture of the torpedo version (PER LA PATRIA 2334):


    Some were upgunned to 2xMG in the nose and/or tail


    Others 2x 2 in the tail on improvised mounts with a very narrow arc of fire,which must have been operated by one or the other pilots standing in his seat, facing backwards. Probably not a great success. The rear cupola and extra gunner would have reduced bombload by ~150kg vice 50kg, but would have been far more effective!


  13. #13

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    Attilio , I can see the direct attachments you added, thank you. Does it say anywhere in there if those climb rate figures are with or with out bomb loads?

    Thanks for the additional info on the 25mm Zoe.

  14. #14

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    I'll hope to find other info looking at some books. If I try other data I'll post them

    Attilio

  15. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Attila57 View Post


    I'll hope to find other info looking at some books. If I try other data I'll post them

    Attilio
    Alora Attilio!

    Could I ask of you a favour please? Could you check my interpretation of:
    Oltre alle diverse mitragliatrici utilizzate in deroga alle normali due Fiat mod.1914, vennero montate (come č stato giŕ segnalato) anche armi di grosso calibro, tra cui un cannoncino da 25.4 Fiat mm e uno da 37 mm. Un Ca.1 e numerosi Ca.3 furono impiegati con questo speciale armamento (37 mm.) presso diverse unitŕ. Due Fiat 1914 accoppiate fecero talvolta la loro apparizione nelle torrette posteriori.
    ...
    Numerosi furono invece i Ca.3 con un'arma da 37 millimetri che andarono in dotazione alla 16a squadriglia e alla 201a Squadriglia;
    ...
    La 201a ebbe inoltre in carico almeno un Ca.3 armato di cannoncino da 37 mm a prua. Questa speciale versione fu la dotazione standard della 16a Squadriglia, costituita a Padova il 22 gennaio 1918. ... Altri Ca.3 con cannoncino operarono presso una Sezione Caproni della 122a Squadriglia e in squadriglie adibite alla difesa territoriale quali la 301a di Foggia, la 109a di Trenno e la 107a di Centocelle che ebbe probabilmente in dotazione anche l'unico Ca.1 con arma Fiat da 25,4 mm.
    Would my postings above be accurate? I missed out the (37mm?) armed 122nd, and detachments in the 301st, 109th and 107th - the last probably being issued with the single 25mm armed aircraft.

    Sources:
    http://www.aereimilitari.org/Storia/IGM/Caproni_2.htm
    http://www.aereimilitari.org/Storia/IGM/Caproni_3.htm

  16. #16

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    [QUOTE=Zoe Brain;93495]Alora Attilio!

    Could I ask of you a favour please? Could you check my interpretation of:

    QUOTE]

    For sure, ASAP

    Attilio

  17. #17

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    My translation:

    In addition to the various guns used in derogation from the normal two Fiat mod.1914, also large caliber weapons were mounted (as was already reported), including a Fiat 25.4 mm cannon and a 37 mm one. One Ca.1 and many Ca.3s were used with this special weaponry (37 mm.) at different units. Two coupled Fiat 1914 sometimes made ​​their appearance in the rear turrets.
    ...
    Many were on the contrary the Ca.3s with a 37 mm weapon issued to the 16 th Squadron and 201 th Squadron
    ...
    The 201 th Squadron also had at least one Ca.3 armed with a 37 mm cannon forward (in the bow). This special version was the standard equipment of the 16 th Squadron, formed on 22 January 1918 in Padua. Other Ca.3s with a gun operated with a Caproni section of the 122 th Squadron and in Squadrons used for territorial defense such as the 301 th and in Foggia, the 109 th in Trenno and the 107 th in Centocelle (Rome) that had been supplied with the sole Ca.1 with a Fiat 25.4 mm.


    There's a really nice new books of Italian Air Force Hystorical Office "Gli Artigli delle Aquile" with a description of all aviation weaponries used in Italy during WWI.


    Attachment 23866

    I didn't find other data about Caproni (I look at Jane's, one of the two Windsock Datafile of Gregory Alegi and at the biographies of two italian WWI Caproni's pilots) But the hunting is open
    Last edited by Attila57; 09-29-2011 at 00:34.

  18. #18

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    Italian and French Cannon on aircraft.

    Looking at the photo of a Ca.3 with a 37mm, this looks an awful lot like the French Hotchkiss 1885 37mm QF adapted for airborne use:

    Caproni Ca3 with 37mm


    Brequet 5Ca2 with Hotchkiss 1885 37mm cannon


    The cannon on the SUFFICIT ANIMUS looks like the 25mm FIAT(Revelli) Semi-Automatic gun.




    The Italian Air Force, having some of the largest bombing planes of World War I (the Caponi and Savoia-Pomilio), made an attempt to arm them with air-borne artillery. It turned to the well-known inventor, Bethel Abiel Revelli, to answer this problem. The result was a semiautomatic 25.4-mm cannon, chambered for a 1-inch projectile. Revelli claimed that work commenced on this cannon as early as 1913. It was classified as light (99 pounds), air cooled, long-recoil operated, magazine fed, and capable of firing its contents of eight cartridges in 2 seconds. The muzzle velocity was in excess of 1,320 feet a second. The cannon was strictly a flexible gun and was easily adapted for mounting on a Scarff ring.

    The Fiat Co. at Turin, Italy, after making 200 of these guns, then officially called the Revelli (or Fiat) model 1917, sent one of its officials, Francisco Negri, to England in order to interest that government in arming bombing planes with the gun. British air officers, after witnessing the demonstration and examining the mechanism, pronounced it to be a copy of their own Vickers 37-mm, which they felt was a superior piece of ordnance that could also fire an explosive projectile without violating international law. In fact, Vickers officials were highly critical of the Italian company's ethics in sending this alleged copy of one of their own guns to England for testing.

    Thereafter the Fiat Co. made only the original order and destroyed the manufacturing drawings, devoting its time to producing an aircraft machine gun.

    Commander Garnier, of the French arsenal at Puteaux, at the completion of a trial of the Revelli conducted by his government, stated that he did not believe the weapon met the needs of the French Air Force for the following reasons: (1) For incendiary use the 11-mm Vickers machine gun was entirely satisfactory; and (2) the manufacture of a supersensitive fuze (or for that matter a fuze of any sort) was a difficult thing for so small a projectile as the 25.4-mm one.

    Even Italian Air Force officers complained about mounting this gun with fuzed ammunition, as a jam in the act of feeding with an up-to-now-unproved fuze would result in disaster if a malfunction took place while in flight. All attempts to produce a bore-safe fuze resulted in failure of the projectiles to explode on the target on an average of two out of every ten tested.

    After 12 Caponi bombers were armed with the Revelli cannon, an order was issued not to equip planes with cannon of any sort, as machine guns were considered better all-around armament. The consensus was that, while the weapon itself was undoubtedly reliable in its action, it had a bore that seemed too small for causing explosive damage and too large for highspeed machine-gun work.
    Source - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/I/MG-5.html

    The weapon was a 37-mm Hotchkiss Model 1885, and, while not automatic in principle, it was referred to, in a complimentary way, as a "quick-firing gun." A whole squadron of Voisins was equipped with this aerial artillery and immediately assigned to the defense of Paris. Upon declaration of war by Germany a few months later, more such planes were sent to bases behind the lines to act as bomber escorts.

    The performance of the avions-canons was considered satisfactory from the start, and the protection they offered the bombers was so good that losses through attack by German aircraft were almost negligible. The French had a great advantage in the awesome aerial armament they carried at the very outbreak of the war, at a time when German aviators were carrying nothing more than pistols and repeating rifles.

    The freedom of bombing squadrons from attack at the beginning of hostilities was taken by the French to mean that opposing flyers were over-awed by the cannon-bearing escort. There is no question that the enemy had great respect for the French Voisins and did not go too far out of its way to engage them until the mounting of rifle-caliber machine guns in its fighters became prevalent. Thereafter aerial cannon played a secondary role to machine guns, though the French Air Force never stopped development of aircraft cannon as offensive aerial weapons.

    Many spectacular kills have been credited to this innovation in warfare. As early as 1915 such a gun was mounted in the rear seat of a plane piloted by Norman Prince, an American member of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. Bob Scanlon, an American negro and an ex-boxer, acted as the gunner. On 10 January of that year, Prince and Scanlon scored their first victory by making a direct hit on an enemy plane with their 37-mm cannon.
    Source - Ibid.


    Sounds like a C class air-to-air weapon to me.

    The first of the French 37 mm airborne cannon was the powerful M1902 "Tube Canon" which fired a 37x201R cartridge. The other common French aircraft weapon in this calibre was the short-barrelled naval Hotchkiss M1885, chambered for the low-velocity 37x94R cartridge. The M1885 was later modified with a smoothbore barrel to fire the "shotgun cartridge" shells in some fighters, as a rifled barrel disturbed the pattern of shot.

    Various sub-types of the Voisin aircraft were available with these cannon throughout the war, flexibly mounted in the front gun position of the pusher aircraft. The Breguet 5Ca2 was also originally fitted with a 37 mm cannon for bomber escort purposes, as was the Caudron R.14 which appeared too late to see action.
    Source - http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/cannon_pioneers.htm

    The Italians used the French M1885 (as did various other nations) and also developed their own Vickers-Terni aircraft gun around the more powerful 37x201R cartridge. They referred to these guns as the 37/20.6 and 37/40 respectively, after the barrel lengths in calibres (i.e. the 37/40 barrel was 37mm x 40 = 1,480 mm long). They also produced and fielded one of the few fully-automatic cannon, the 25 mm Revelli-FIAT. This was flexibly mounted in the nose of a Macchi L flying boat, a dozen Savoia Pomilio S.P.2, and a similar number of Caproni bombers, mainly Ca.3 but also Ca.4 and Ca.5. However, a sensitive nose fuze caused problems with premature detonations of the HE shells, and production had to be stopped when Vickers threatened to sue for breach of patent due to the similarities between this weapon and a Vickers 1 inch gun design.
    Source - Ibid

    So what about this weapon? The famous 25.4mm on a Caproni Ca1(?).


    A conjecture:
    The Vickers 1 Pr Mk III was in many ways the most promising of the First World War aircraft cannon, as it was light and compact, belt fed (so no need to change or reload magazines) and fired a shorter and less powerful cartridge (37x69R instead of 37x94R) than the usual 1 Pr Maxim with which it is often confused. It was first installed in the Vickers F.B.7 of 1915, then in 1917 was fitted together with searchlights in five F.E.2b aircraft for trials in the home defence role. The gun was flexibly mounted in a widened front cockpit, with the gunner sitting next to the pilot. Two other F.E.2b with this gun were sent to France and carried out night ground attack missions during the summer of 1917 with some success, particularly against trains. It was also planned for the Curtis C and the Martinsyde F.1 and Vickers F.B.24 two-seat fighters of 1917.

    The use of the gun was not without problems; the recoil caused damage to the structure and loose spent shell cases were sometimes blown back into the pusher propeller. The Mk III might have made a viable fighter weapon in a fixed installation, but the heavy mounting, plus the weight of the gunner, rather negated its compactness and light weight.
    Here's a picture of a Mk III


    On an FE2b


    And here is a Vickers 1 pdr Pom Pom which it was often confused with...


    The pusher plane was, no doubt, the little FE2b - actually quite a nice little aircraft when viewed 'in the round'. On a hurried catch-up I find several mentions. This is said to show a 'Vickers 2HE' cannon in the front cockpit of a 2FEb - - the gunner is Rowland A Varley, Observer, of 58 Sqn, RFC, in the spring of 1918 (see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/r_m_g.v...mily_page.html).
    ...
    The 1 pdr Vickers auto cannon Mk III was the gun normally used by three FE2b fighters of No 100 squadron in 1917 for train busting. It fired a very short 37 x 69R mm case (300 m/s) loaded in belts of 25.
    Source : http://landships.activeboard.com/t36...ch-gun/?page=1

    See also http://www.elgrancapitan.org/foro/vi...p?f=80&t=17605
    http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/...lying-gunships
    Last edited by Zoe Brain; 09-29-2011 at 08:34.

  19. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zoe Brain View Post
    Italian and French Cannon on aircraft.
    ....
    Really nice info and picture! Well done!

    Attilio



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