Caudron CR.714 ***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

As part of a kit swop with Pat I aquired this.

We are all familiar with the mainstream fighters of WWII - Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf109, Mustang etc but there were a few others that were developed between the late 1930's and about 1940 that get little mention as very few ever managed to enter service, but this one did albeit in small numbers. Some were developed as "emergency measures" to make up numbers against a perceived shortage of "normal" planes, others to make use of alternative materials such as wood instead of aluminium whch might be in short supply, and some to do a bit of both, but in most if not all cases the idea was for them to be built by manufacturers not already at full stretch making the better known fighters. In the UK for example one thinks of Martin Baker with their MB 2 and Miles with the M.20 and in Italy the SAI company, but the CR.714 ws the French "entry" in this class.

 

I had assumed that this was a re-pop of the Heller moulding from 1967, but Scalemates say that the original mould was by a company called Reflex in the 1980's, and after passing through the hands of a couple of other companies it  ended up being released by Mistercraft. It is basic but the mouldings are clean and with a little detailing it could be quite good.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Graham Boak]

I have the Reflex kit, it is a reboxing of the Heller.

[FalkeEins]

1 hour ago, PeterB said:

very few ever managed to enter service, but this one did albeit in small numbers.

Developed from a long line of Caudron racers, interesting machine. The French air ministry suspended all flying on the type in mid-May (1940) due to its numerous faults . As it was the only aircraft available to the Poles in GC I/145 the pilots elected to continue flying it anyway. There were around 20 still serviceable on June 8. 

[JOCKNEY]

Great to see this one joining the GB Pete, you are certainly not short of decal options !

Best of luck.

 

Cheers Pat 

[PeterB]

Thanks guys,

 

Yes it certainly looks like the Heller kit, complete with its errors/omissions. I just remembered I have the Mushroom book on  GC 1/145 and it has a lot of useful info. The kit cockpit leaves the rear glazing section see-through but in photos it seems not to be. In fact I now find that it is like the Curtiss Hawks where the rear glazing is only a short distance out from the fuselage side panel providing a sort of "tunnel" to give very limited rear view. I am going to have to do quite a bit of work on it without mucking it up with glue - should be fun. It will make more sense to you when I do it I guess. However a couple of years ago I asked Mushroom how they felt about me posting the odd pic from their books on this forum and they had no objections, so this might explain what I am talking about.

The actual glazing is missing on this which is one of the few in Finnish service, of which more anon. The cockpit is to the right.

Cheers

 

Pete.

Edited July 27, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

I have made a start on the cockpit. The first puzzle is what colour to paint it - normally French planes had a dark blue interior I believe, as indeed is shown on the instructions for the RS kit. However this kit says blue grey which fits with the pics of the 2 surviving (partial) airframes which were in Finnish service. I have decided the rear part of the cockpit, ie the psuedo windows at the rear, would look silly if the fuselage under them was blue, and all the illustrations show grey so I have gone with that - as to the actual cockpit itself I am still thinking about it ut again probably grey, though maybe the ones in France were different to those in Finland - any ideas?

 

The first job is to tackle the problem of the rear glazing I mentioned earlier. The RS kit takes a more convential approach - like the various P-36/P-40 kits the fuselage is fully moulded and shaped and seperate glazing pieces go in. However this kit is not as easy as the complete glazing is in one piece which has to be juggled into place as the fuselage halves are joined. There are a number of solutions which come to mind - firstly I could just ignore the problem and maybe paint the inside of the rear so it is no longer see through. Alternatively I could build up the interiot "tunnel" in the rear fuselage and saw the canopy into half, replacing the rear with DIY glazing - tempting but I am uncertain if I can saw through the rather brittle canopy without cracking/brwaking it (and yes I know the trick of packing it with blue/white tack to support it. And then there is the complicated way which is what I am going to try!

 

I have cut out some pieces to go inside the canopy -

The thin angled slivers go at the bottom of the sides with the wide part at the front, and the curved "wedges" glue to the aforementioned strips and to the top of the canopy to form the fuselage sides. The bit in the middle, once repainted, should hopefully act as a bulkhead to close it off, leaving the "slits" at the side so the pilot could see back through the "windows" assuming he had a rubber neck! This might explain it better!

So far so good - now I just need to dry fit and make any adjustments to the bulkhead - it might just work! Bit of touching up needed on the framing. After that I will start on the cockpit proper - at the moment it just has a rather odd looking seat which glues on the the lower wing.

 

So here is a bit of background. 

 

I think it is probably fair to say that at the start of the 1930's the French aircraft industry consisted of a lot of companies competing against each other for relatively small orders for military planes, and that development of fighters was proceeding at a fairly leisurely pace. However, the authorities decided to take a hand and merged quite a few of them, mostly the ones involved in making bombers I believe. In the meantime, by around 1936 it began to look as if there might be another war so thoughts moved (slowly) to ordering more modern planes. Of course the French were far from being the only ones who were a bit slow off the mark,

 

As war became imminent they found themselves with just the old MS 406 available in quantity, but the Bloch MB-151/152 was due to begin to enter service in 1939 and the Dewoitine D.520 due to follow not too long after that (in theory). Clearly they were worried they might be short of fighters so they decided order a production version of the Caudron “lightweight” fighter developed privately, starting with the experimental C.710 derived from the civilian racers which competed in the 1933-35 Coupe Deutsch de la Meuthe, which @Mjoo is building elsewhere in this GB. According to Green in his old "War Planes of the Second World War" series, the C 710 was followed by the C 713 fighter which had a retractable undercarriage and first flew in December 1937 and the following year the C.714 appeared with a strengthened fuselage and a wing of improved profile. This was test flown throughout 1938 and in November of that year a pair of 7.5mm mg were mounted in a sort of pannier under each wing. Orders were placed for 100 shortly afterwards but for whatever reason production did not start until summer 1939. The fuselage was wood with metal panels round the cowling, and the wing was a one piece two spar wooden construction. Green says that it only took 5000 man hours to build so you might have expected them to be churning them out pretty rapidly, particularly if they contracted out some of the woodwork to furniture manufacturers as did DH with the Mosquito I believe, but in reality production was pretty slow and the 90th machine was not delivered until February 1940 - maybe later as sources seem to disagree, but more on that another day.

 

With its long, thin fuselage and relatively small wings it looked as if it should be fast, but that lack of width meant that they could only fit in a 450hp Renault 12Ro1 air cooled inverted V engine. Even so it could do 302 mph at 13000 ft which was about the same as the MS 406, partly due to the fact that it only weighed 3086lb empty, whilst the MS weighed 4189lb, but had a 860 hp Hispano Suiza engine. However its wing area of only 134 sq ft compared badly with the MS's 172 sq ft, and coupled with the low power it had a considerably poorer rate of climb that would come back to haunt it before too long. Incidentally Green says that the C 713 was called the "Cyclone", but I have seen the C 714 also called by that name.

 

To be continued as they say.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

 

 

[PeterB]

When I first saw this kit I knew I would have to at the very least make and fit a stick and IP to the cockpit, possibly a floor and bulkhead too, and that I would have to box in the wheel wells. I did not expect that I would have to build a rear cockpit too, but anyway it is done.

Ok, the glazing is not the best but it does not look too bad from a normal distance. Bit of work to do yet including fairing in the top fuselage where it meets the canopy and retouching the frames - with hindsight I would probably have been better not painting them in before fixing it.

 

Exactly how many CR 714 were built let alone actually entered service is subject to debate. The first order was for 100 and another 100 were ordered later but it is usually stated that the orders were cancelled once the 90th plane was completed as it was not regarded as satisfactory, in part due to the poor rate of climb. In the Mushroom book the author can account for just 85 including the prototype and of those 6 were incomplete at the time of the French surrender whilst a further 14 were complete but had not been collected by the Air Force, so that leaves just 64, at least a couple of which were retained for test purposes. Of the remaining machines some were sent to Finland and here sources differ greatly. The Mushroom book says 6 whilst Green said 50 but only 6 arrived, but I may be able to explain that next time. With a total in service of around 56, most if not all were flown by the Polish pilots of GC 1/145 and there is an interesting but somewhat sad story behind that.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 28, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

I have started on the cockpit proper.

The first thing I did was glue a strip of card in floorpan to created part of the wheel well roof. The kit seat is far too big and the wrong shape, and also, as it is intended to fit on the rear of the lower wing it would be much too far forward - the pilot would have his face up against the windscreen and his knees under the IP! I have therefore dug out a replacement from my spares box and created a sub-assembly with floor, rear bulkhead and stick, and that will go into the actual fuselage up against the bits I put in yesterday. The IP is missing from the one in Finland and also the fuselage they have returned to France for restoration so I have made something based on the one in the RS kit.  I put the bits in place and glued on the wings and tail - with difficulty! I don't know if the mould is showing its considerable age or what but the top wing parts don't line up fore and aft with the bottom. I managed to get the leading edges to line up by filing out the gap for the ailerons. and will have to check the plans in the Mushroom book to see wheher I need to either fill or just file the trailing edge as the upper wing overhangs it a bit still.

Not the best of fits but I have seen worse.

 

So, back to the story

 

 I will be drawing on the Mushroom Models book on the Polish pilots who flew in France, but bear in mind that the author is himself Polish and so may have a slight but understandable bias! I have shortened it quite drastically as it takes over 30 pages in the book, though that does include a lot of photos etc.

 

Following the fall of Poland many of their military managed to escape. Some made unfortunate choices of destination and ended up being taken prisoner by the Russians within a month or two, but many made it either to the UK or France, including a fair few pilots and groundcrew. I get the impression the French had mixed feelings about them as they were already short of planes and their training establishments were at full stretch, but they did start training some of them to fly the MS 406. Then on November 30th 1939 Russia invaded Finland and both the French and the Poles wanted to help. By January 1940 there was general agreement that a force of Polish fighter pilots would be sent to Finland equipped with Caudron 714 aircraft provided by the French, and this was formally ratified in February. Training commenced and aircraft started to arrive, and then in March Finland surrendered and the whole thing ground to a halt. I suspect this is where the inflated figure for Caudrons sent to Finland that I mentioned earlier originated.

 

The French now once more had to decide what to do with their Poles, who were proving slightly difficult to train as the RAF also found. First there was the language problem (Repeat please!), and then there was their overwhelming desire to start shooting down German planes which made them reluctant at times to accept orders. The Poles managed to persuade them that it would be easier if they set up their own units and in February the French agreed to the formation of Group de Chasse GC 1/145 (Warsaw) based at Lyons - Bron. Unfortunately the Caudrons were being produced rather slowly so they had very few planes to start with. In fact they were virtually flying them in direct from the factory before they had been subject to much testing so inevitably there were many problems. One Polish pilot later wrote that “We had learned from different sources about their disadvantages:low climbing speed; engine failures; failures of undercarriage retraction mechanisms; automatic propeller pitch change, engine covers separating in a dive; capricious flight instruments: fragile design...”. No doubt many of these problems could have been sorted out eventually but the Poles did not have much in the way of airfield tools and equipment and even less time.

 

On May 10th the Luftwaffe attacked the airfield which had poor AA defences. The Poles started positioning alert flights at outlying fields but these had even less air defence and frequently no radio to warn them of incoming enemy planes and even when they did, the warnings from the transmitter on the Eiffel Tower often arrived after the Germans. It was chaos and some of he French were not impressed with the Poles, saying they were inefficient and it would be better to break up the unit and put pilots in French Squadrons – this was of course resisted fiercely. Then on May 25th the French announced that the Caudron was unfit for combat, but as there was nothing else available the Poles decided to keep flying them (at their own risk). For the next month the dwindling number of pilots and planes moved around France but although it would be nice to say that they scored a lot of kills as is sometimes claimed, in reality the actual confirmed total was probably only 4 Do-17 and 4 Bf 109 for the loss of 3 killed in action, one in an accident and 2 wounded. By mid June the end was nigh and GC 1/145 was disbanded with only 2 planes fully operational though another 26 could have been repaired given time and spares. Total aircraft losses were 15.

 

8 pilots were sent to fly with the French GC 1/1for a couple of days before all evacuated to La Rochelle by arrangement with the British Embassy, and sailed for England on the morning of June 20th. During their short stay in France these brave exiles did not really have a chance to prove their worth. The ones who went to the UK direct also had a bit of a slow start perhaps, but ended up with the top scoring Squadron during the Battle of Britain I believe and proved more than worthy allies given a bit more time and better equipment.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

 

 

[PeterB]

So it is just about filled, filed and fettled, the nose intake opened out and a blanking plate fitted, and the wheel bays boxed in and some primer on.

Now it is time to start thinking about paint and I have to admit I have always found French planes of WWII problematic, so I found the intro to the camo section in the Mushroom book somewhat amusing. With apologies to our Gallic friends I quote-

 

“Considering the Caudron C.714, like other planes of the French Air Force of the period of the 1940 campaign, it is hard to speak of camouflage rules. According to C.J. Ehrengardt's* statement, one of the top experts on this subject matter, after analysing numerous sources, he came to the conclusion that with regard to the French Air Force in 1939/1940, the rule is no rule at all. Why should one simplify something, when it could be more complicated? The camouflage originators must have had this idea always before them when screening individual machines. Therefore it is hard to find two planes of the same type similarly painted. On the one hand this adds to the originality of each plane; on the other it makes it impossible to establish any rules”. The author of the book is Polish but I believe he is quoting a Frenchman.

 

Back when White Ensign were still the producers of Colourcoats paint, I bough a slew of their French Colours – a couple of dark browns, two or was it three different shades of “Vert” green none of which matched the almost “grass green” Vert in the Humbrol Authentic range, a light olive colour called “Kaki” which seems to have been preferred instead of Vert on most fighters according to my various sources, and the last of the upper surface colours was Gris Bleu Fonce or Dark Grey/Blue. For the undersides there was a choice of Sky Blue or Light Grey Blue – Gris Bleu Clair. I still have most of them but the greys have either dried/run out or been lost so I will have to use substitutes – I was never entirely happy with them anyway as they seemed a bit too dark to me, though White Ensign insisted they were correct. I have no idea if the current Colourcoats from Sovereign hobbies are the same or whether Jamie changed them.

 

Most of the profiles in the Mushroom book show a sort of streaky pattern on the uppers with roughly equal parts of grey, green and brown, though there seem to have been some which were predominantly green.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

*PS 

I have never come across Cristien Jaques Ehrengardt before but it seems he has written a number of books on French planes and a few of them are on Amazon!

Edited July 30, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

You can perhaps see what I meant when I described the camo earlier as "streaky".

The green and brown will need a little touching up and then I have to decide on the grey - may go for something a bit darker. I put a coat of Maskol on the canopy to avoid overpainting it,  and I will probably paint the rudder in white before putting the decs on as I am uncertain how opaque they are.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Well, I think this about as close as I can get it. The green might be a bit on the dark side but it does depend on the light. I don't know how effective it might be at hiding the plane, but like the WWI naval dazzle camo it certainly breaks up the outline.

I will drill holes for the Radio mast, pitot tube, and gun barrels then make a start on the decs. Not surprisingly the decs do not match up with the info in the Mushroom book but I should be able to fix that. In service as distinct to training they carried a Tricolor on the tail and French roundels above and below the wings, together with the Polish "checkerboard" on the fuselage. Under the wing was the "Matricule Militaire" or registration number which according to documentation should have been in the format "T-" under the Port wing and a 3 digit number under the Starboard, though in reality it was painted as "I-". If it was part of the first flight there would be a white number on the fixed vertical tail, and if in the second flight then the number would be on the rear fuselage, or so it seems. The kit provides the Matricule I-234 which was on plane 8576 which carried the tail number 44, but was damaged on May 27th. The number decs are for either "13" or a very large "2" which was probably only used in training as there is a pic of 8564 I-204 carrying such a 2 which crashed and was never part of GC 1/145. There is also a set of Polish insignia with the previous French roundel showing through, and again these were only seen on training machines, not the ones in the GC, but they also provide a normal "checkerboard". I intend to print a Matricule for plane 8549, I-207, which had 13 on the tail and was flown by Podporucznik (Ppor) Aleksy Zukowski when he was leader of the 5th section of the first flight based at Dreux-Maison La Blanche between June 2nd and 10th. His rank is the equivalent of a Flying Officer I believe and on June 10th he was credited with shooting down a Do-17P. The plane was later damaged during landing and found relatively intact when the Germans captured the airfield at Villacoublay.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 30, 2021 by PeterB

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Pete

Really enjoying the history as well.

Cheers Pat

[PeterB]

Thanks Pat,

I seem to remember you mentioning a problem with the decs - are these the ones that came with this kit as the numbering and placement instructions do not entirely match? The moulds are past their best after 50 or so years and it is basic, but it scrubs up quite well with a bit of tweaking, so thanks for letting me build it. The only really annoying thing is that having managed to sort the rear end of the cockpit relatively easily, I managed to get a smear of Clearfix inside the canopy when wrestling into place, so it is not as clear as it might have been, but that is down to me at least in part. Now we will see just how well the decs work.

 

Pete

[alt-92]

Whey, look away for a sec and paint's already on! 
Pete, did it say Super decals somewhere on the box? MC do that sometimes, and it seems pot luck whether they include those on the destruction sheets or not. 
The P-40E I got for funsies did, but the Plastyk origin D3A Val did not. 

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Pete

Yes they were the decals it came with, I'm yet to build one of my MC kits so I don't know if the decals behave themselves or not, sorry.

Cheers Pat

[PeterB]

14 hours ago, alt-92 said:

Pete, did it say Super decals somewhere on the box? MC do that sometimes, and it seems pot luck whether they include those on the destruction sheets or not. 
 

Pat sent it in a bag so I have no idea. Fortunately the ones I am using off the sheet have worked well, though the red and blue on the tail don't quite match the Berna roundels.

 

Pete

Edited July 31, 2021 by PeterB

[FalkeEins]

On 7/30/2021 at 12:34 AM, PeterB said:

 

I have never come across Cristien Jaques Ehrengardt before but it seems he has written a number of books on French planes and a few of them are on Amazon!

 

 Christian-Jacques Ehrengardt  - doyen of French aviation historians and founder and long-time editor of the leading French bi-monthly "Aérojournal"  - now in its third iteration. Passed away a few years ago.  Best known perhaps for this book - which saw Clostermann take him to court and the book getting  pulped.  Offers over 80 euros for my copy..

[Graham Boak]

To the ecstatic (and somewhat distasteful) glee of the magazine that was the main competition.

 

For anyone interested in modelling French WW2 aircraft, the book to get is CJE's last one for Caraktere.  Camouflages et marques de l'aviation française (1939-1945).  Pricey but worth every penny.  Even for non-French speakers, though of course learning at least the colour names helps!

[PeterB]

Well, that appears to be done!

Ok, maybe a little touching up to do round the canopy, and then it can join the queue for a coat of varnish.

 

To finish off the story, I mentioned at the beginning there were 2 types of "emergency fighters" - those like the Miles M.20 were basic planes relatively easy to produce to make up numbers but still had a "normal" and heavy engine - in that case the Merlin. Then there were the genuine lightweight fighters like the Caudron which had a light but low powered engine. Caudron did manage to produce prototypes of a couple of improved versions, the C.R 760 which was initially going to be called the CR 715, which had a tubular fuselage covered in dural skinning and a 730HP Isotta-Fraschini Delta  RC40 built under licence by Renault. Max speed went up to 354mph and the climb to 13000ft was reduced from 6.75 minutes to 5 minutes, all on an empty weight of only 3179lb, and the CR 770 which replaced the engine with a Renault 626 800HP engine which pushed the weight up to 3836lb empty but the speed increased to 367 mph and the climb to 13000ft was reduced again to 4.25 minutes.  Both prototypes were destroyed as the Wermacht approach the airfield. So with the right engine a lightweight fighter could have been extremely competitive.

 

Meanwhile, in Italy SAI were developing a couple of planes to the same formula and which looked very similar. The SAI 207 with the 750HP Delta RC40 weighed 3858lb empty and could reach 398mph and 13 preproduction machines were built before production switched to the improved SAI 403 Dardo (Arrow) with a a 750 HP Delta RC21/60 Series I-IV engine. Weight increased to 4372lb empty but speed went up again to 403mph.  In January 1943 3000 were ordered but but none were completed due to the armistice. By comparison the Spitfire Mk I weighed 4800lb empty, rising to 5800 lb for the Mk IX, and the Miles M20 was actually no lightweight at 5884lb empty!

 

All weight and performance date from Green's Warplanes series for comparison - no guarantee they are correct!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited August 1, 2021 by PeterB

[stevehnz]

Wow Peter, what a beaut thread. I love your build of this thing. At the start it was "I do NOT want one of these" now I'm edging towards, "yeah, I could manage that", the potted history you've included with it is gold, a great read, & the Caudron looks terrific. Thanks.

Steve 

[PeterB]

Thanks Steve,

Not sure I would recommend this particular kit, or I suppose the Heller one it is probably based on. Looking at the instructions on Scalemates the RS one looks like a better bet, depending on how @alt-92 gets on with his on this GB - at least they seem to have got the rear cockpit right and provide a decent seat and IP!

 

Pete

Edited August 1, 2021 by PeterB

[Heather Kay]

I built the RS Caudron a couple of years back.

 

 

The only thing that let it down was the vagueness in the instructions about the undercarriage assembly. I’m still not convinced I have fitted the doors properly.

[PeterB]

I know what you mean Heather - same problem with mine though I do have some plans. Both the canopy and the "sighting thingy" in front of the windscreen took much better, and the wing looks like i is a more accurate shape.

 

Pete

Edited August 1, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

So that is done.

Not the best of kits but it has come out quite well.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[jean]

Hi Pete,

 

well done to have finished this kit. The painting itself is enough of a challenge!

You should be proud of the overall result.

 

Great show.

 

JR