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Assembly details from the instruction sheet, which comes with the download.

 

 

Information about the French Caudron

Caudron G.3

This French Caudron is a type of two-seater, single-engined biplane, with a double (twin) tail. The uncovered rear booms were used as landing skids. The spars in the wings were of made of ash and spruce. The nacelle was placed between the wings of this biplane with the upper wing wider than the lower to reduce drag. Thus it was called a "sesquiplane".

The G.3 first flew in prototype form prior to the war in late-1913 and was introduced in time for combat during 1914. It went on to stock various air services beyond that of the French including the United States, Poland, and Finland.

Caudron G.3 Variants

The G.3 A.2 was powered by an 80 horsepower French Le Rhone C series rotary engine.

G.3 D.2 was used to train new pilots and ground crew.

The G.3 L.2 had the 100 horsepower Anzani 10 series radial piston engine to make it a more powerful addition to the war front.

Caudron G.4

Even though it was slow and also suffered from limitations of armament, the Caudron G.4, like the G.3 was reliable, climbed well, and was fun to fly. It became a good training aircraft after it was no longer needed for combat. Quite a few pilots were trained on the Caudrons.

 

Armament

Because it was used mostly for reconnaissance, it was usually thought to be unarmed, however the pilot usually carried a rifle or a dagger and had to jump out of the plane to attack the enemy. Such a maneuver was considered dangerous and was seldom required. Nevertheless, it sometimes had a machine gun mounted, although it couldn't be "forward firing" because it had no interrupter gear to fire through the propeller blades.

An even more dangerous maneuver was to fly low over the enemy and drop small bombs by hand onto a target. The Caudron was considered to be a bomber when it performed this type of operation despite never being called a "tanker" when fully loaded with beverages.