Some other French types that may lend themselves to similar treatments:
Caudron 714 ...
Nice! The C.714 went straight up my flagpole. But I decided to add an extra element of whiffery. So, ...
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Flouting the 1938 Munich Agreement, the Nazis occupied Czech lands on 15 March 1939. In partial response, the French government ordered French military equipment to be donated to Poland. Among this surplus equipment were Caudron C.714 light fighters and C.600 basic trainer monoplanes.
The former had been gauged inadequate for the needs of the
l'Armée de l'Air - being lacking in both performance and firepower. The first dozen C.714 airframes arrived at the port of Gdynia in late April 1939 for rail-shipment to Warsaw for assembly. These aircraft had arrived stripped of armament and radios. In Warsaw, most C.714s were armed with four 7,9 mm wz. 36 machine guns. However, a few were fitted with underwing pods for 20 mm cannons. [1]
Bottom Caudron C.714 light fighter of K.O.P. 185, Puck, September 1939. The
Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza (Border Protection Corps) squadrons were mainly based in the east. K.O.P. 185 was the first border unit establish in the 'Polish Corridor'. Note that no radio is installed (to save weight).
Cyclone was applied to the Caudron C.714 in French service. In Poland, this became
Cyklon. Likewise, the C.600 was dubbed
Aiglon (Eaglet) which became
Orle. In truth, however, such popular names were not widely used either in France or Poland.
As delivered, the Caudron trainers had been stripped of their Renault 4Pgi engines. Instead, they were to be powered by 110 hp PZInż.
Junior engined produced at the Polish
Ursus plant. As such, they were designated C.600P by Caudron and referred to as the '
l'Aiglon polonais'. Beyond assembly, the Poles were expected to devise engine mounts and new cowlings for the C.600Ps. As a result, only a handful of C.600P trainers were completed and delivered before the German onslaught commenced.
Top Caudron C.600P
Orle of an unknown training unit. The French-applied camouflage was not especially effective in or over Polish terrain. This particular Caudron was destroyed on the ground by Luftwaffe strafing on 03 September 1939 after being withdrawn to Sulejów.
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[1] The cannons fitted were former trials guns - both Oerlikon FFs and Madsens