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fiberglass shell,” he says, “and the wings and tail surfaces are all metal.
We can change it from a tricycle gear to a tail dragger and the wings
fold. You can put it in your garage,” he boasts.
The French Caudron
Wathen recently completed the reconstruction of a 1935-36 French-
manufactured Caudron. “This airplane was built to perform and compete
in the 1936 air races in the U.S. which were held in the month of June,”
Tom recounts. “It competed with the best that America could provide
and it wiped out everybody. It didn’t just win, it broke the mold by speed
and performance.” Pilot Michel Detroyat’s slowest lap was faster than
anything ever flown in the United States around a closed circuit. His
winning speed was a remarkable 273.473 mph.
“The Caudron is an all-wooden airplane, mostly spruce, which is
strong for its weight and has always been preferential building material
for aircraft,” Tom explains. “It was laid up like a box, formed in a rounder
shape, then planked, just like a model airplane, which is built the same
way, kind of like a truss, cross-braced. On top of that,” he continues,
“the (plywood) formers give it shape. And then stringers are covered with
fabric or ultra-thin plywood and then fabric.”
The Caudron is a single-seater and was made for a small pilot. Its
wings were at the bottom of the craft, which was common then. Biplanes
had been eliminated from racing by the turn of the 1930s. The plane’s
six-cylinder inverted 330 hp engine was made by Renault.
The plane was not easy to re-create as there were no original drawings
available, but Tom discovered some in Paris at the Musée de l’Air. “They
found some drawings of the 460 in their archives and had a
couple of other planes that were iterations of this. I worried
about what they were going to charge me,” he laughs, “but it came
to $28 for copying costs.” He and his crew also found model plans.
“Harry Robinson, in collaboration with a Frenchman, had put together a
coffee table book on the Caudrons and had a wealth of information with
drawings, etc. Harry proved invaluable,” Wathen recounts.
Tom also laughs as he relates the history of the event and its aftermath.
“They brought two engines, the one they won with and an even bigger
engine they didn’t have to use. It was a very fast airplane and it had a
controller on its propeller; ‘Go fast; turn left,’ just like in automobile racing.
We showed ‘em though,” he chuckles. “We never invited them back.”
The 1935-36 Caudron is the fourth airplane Tom has built; all four
have been winners of major races. “This one happens to be winner of the
Thompson Trophy in 1936, in Mines Field, a big grass field then (now
LAX). Almost all the other races,” he notes, “were held in Cleveland.”
Wathen shipped the re-built Caudron to this year’s (2009) International
Air Show held every other year at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris; this
year’s show commemorated 100 years of French flight. Pilot Mark Lightsey
flew it from Pontoise airfield to Le Bourget Thursday evening June 18, and
it remained on prominent display throughout the air show.
The other planes Wathen has re-created include a long-range single-seat
World War II P51 Mustang, the all-wood DeHavilland Comet (predecessor
to the Mosquito bomber), and a full-scale replica of Roscoe Turner’s LT-14
Meteor that won both the 1938 and 1939 National Air Races.
Wathen’s next challenge: A Schoenfeldt Firecracker (Keith Rider’s
famous R-4) that won the Missouri Brewer’s Association Trophy Race in
St. Louis in 1937, with a winning speed of 251.6 mph.
PEOPLE:
TOM WATHEN
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