Caproni Ca.40
| Ca.4 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Caproni Ca.40 heavy bomber prototype | |
| Role | Heavy bomber; later variants included airliners |
| Manufacturer | Caproni |
| First flight | 1917 |
| Introduction | 1918 |
| Primary users |
Italian Army United Kingdom (Royal Naval Air Service) United States |
| Number built | 44 to 53 |
The Caproni Ca.4 was an Italian heavy bomber of the World War I era.
After designing the successful Ca.3, Gianni Caproni of the Caproni works designed a much bigger aircraft. It shared the unusual layout of the Caproni Ca.3, being a twin-boom aircraft with one pusher engine at the rear of a central nacelle and two tractor engines in front of twin booms, providing a push-pull configuration. The twin booms carried a single elevator and three fins. The main landing gear was fixed and consisted of two sets of four wheels each. The most distinguishing feature of the new aircraft was that it was built in a rare triplane layout, instead of the more common biplane.
The huge new bomber was accepted by the Italian Army under the military designation Ca.4, but it was produced in several variants, differing in factory designations.
The Ca.4 was a three-engine, twin-fuselagetriplane of wooden construction with a fabric-covered frame. An open central nacelle was attached to the undersurface of the center wing. It contained a single pusher engine, pilot, and forward gunner. The remaining engines were tractor mounted at the front of each fuselage. At least one variation of the central nacelle seated the crew in a two-seat tandem format with the forward position for a gunner/pilot and the rear position for the pilot. Others used a forward gunner with side-by-side pilot positions to the rear of the gunner. Two rear gunners were positioned, one in each boom behind the center wing. An engineer or second pilot could also be accommodated there.
Armament consisted of four (but up to eight) Revelli 6.5 mm or 7.7 mm machine guns in front ring mounts and two boom ring mounts. Bombs were suspended in a bomb bay, which was a long and narrow container fixed to a lower wing. Photographs show at least four different arrangements with regard to the bombing nacelle.
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