Caproni Ca.125
| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1908 |
| Headquarters | Italy |
The Caproni Ca.125 was a tandem two-seat, single-engine touring biplane constructed in Italy in 1933. It was designed to operate both as a landplane and as a seaplane.
Design and development
The Ca.125 featured a wire-braced, single-bay biplane wing arrangement with slender, elliptical wings of unequal span; the bays were defined by pairs of parallel interplane struts. Because the lower wing extended further than the upper, these struts were angled inward. The wings lacked both stagger and sweep. Only the lower wings were equipped with ailerons. While the wing design was graceful, the fuselage appeared deep and bulky, partly due to its enclosed tandem cockpit configuration. The canopies' rooflines followed the contour of the upper fuselage, positioning the crew low within the aircraft and limiting forward visibility. Forward sightlines were further restricted by the six-cylinder upright engine mounted high in the nose to align the thrust line correctly; consequently, the top of the engine cowling was level with the windscreen's top edge, leaving only a narrow gap between them. The wing centre section was connected to the fuselage above the forward cockpit by cabane struts, and a shallow cutout in the rear wing's trailing edge enhanced upward visibility for the rear occupant.
The fuselage had a rounded cross-section that tapered smoothly toward the tail assembly. Its empennage employed conventional surfaces: the tailplane was positioned atop the fuselage and supported by braces attached to the lower longerons. The elevators were designed as separate surfaces to allow clearance for the rounded rudder, which extended down to the fuselage base and moved between them. The vertical stabilizer presented an almost triangular shape. The fixed undercarriage was of conventional design, featuring main wheels enclosed in streamlined spats mounted on V-shaped struts attached to the fuselage sides just ahead of the wing leading edge. Half-axles connected these wheels to the central underside of the fuselage. Additionally, a Ca.125 idro variant was flown, replacing the wheeled undercarriage with two duralumin floats mounted by struts on the lower fuselage for water operations.
Variants
- Ca.125
- conventional landplane version
- Ca.125 idro
- equipped with floats for water operations
Specifications (landplane)
References
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