Caudron C.460
The Caudron C.460 Rafale was a French single-seat racing monoplane built by Caudron-Renault to Marcel Riffard's design for the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. Three were built for 1934: wooden airframes around a supercharged Renault six-cylinder engine, set apart from the fixed-gear C.450 by a retractable undercarriage. On Christmas Day 1934 Raymond Delmotte set a world speed record of 505.85 km/h in a C.460, described in French accounts as the first time a landplane passed 500 km/h. A C.460 won the Coupe Deutsch in 1935, and in 1936 Michel Détroyat won the Greve and Thompson trophies at the US National Air Races. Whether any original survives is unconfirmed; a full-scale replica built in 2009 flies today in Renault's hands.
Why It Mattered
The Caudron C.460 was a single-seat racing monoplane that Caudron-Renault built for the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe, a French speed contest flown over a closed circuit. Only three were built, but in three seasons the type set a world speed record, won the Coupe Deutsch outright, and took the Greve and Thompson trophies in the United States. On Christmas Day 1934 Raymond Delmotte set a new world speed record for light aircraft in a C.460, reaching 505.85 km/h (314.32 mph) over a 3 km course. French reference accounts describe the flight as the first time a landplane had passed 500 km/h. Détroyat is reported to be the only pilot to have won either of those American trophies in a European aircraft in the history of the National Air Races.
Design Notes
Marcel Riffard designed the C.460 at Caudron-Renault, whose technical director he had been since 1932. He developed it from the Caudron C.362 raced the year before, aiming at the 1934 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. The airframe was mainly spruce and birch plywood; the engine sat in bearers of steel and alloy, and the cowling and fuel tanks were magnesium. Its engine was a supercharged Renault 456, a six-cylinder inverted air-cooled unit driving a Ratier two-position variable-pitch propeller. Split flaps were fitted to the wings, and the tailplane's incidence was adjustable in flight. The C.460's defining change from its sister, the fixed-gear C.450, was a retractable undercarriage; making room for the gear in the wing required a two-spar wing instead of the C.450's single spar. French Wikipedia describes the undercarriage as retracted by compressed air.
Operational History
Three C.460s and a single C.450 were ready for the 1934 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. In the race Maurice Arnoux won in the C.450, while Albert Monville finished third in a C.460. The C.460s were handicapped by trouble with their retractable undercarriages and raced with the gear locked down. That August, Hélène Boucher set a record airspeed for her class of 455 km/h (284 mph) in the C.450. On Christmas Day 1934 Delmotte raised the light-aircraft speed record to 505.85 km/h (314.32 mph) over 3 km in a C.460. In May 1935 Delmotte won the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe in a C.460, averaging 443.96 km/h (277.5 mph). For the 1936 Coupe Caudron built two C.461s, developments of the C.460, but delays cost them the race and the C.450 won again, in what proved to be the last Coupe Deutsch. Later that year a C.460 raced in the United States, where Michel Détroyat's flying took the Greve and Thompson trophies at the National Air Races.
Afterlife
Whether any original C.460 survives is unconfirmed: the Thompson Trophy winner is said to be at the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget, but French Wikipedia cautions that this is probably the American replica, or a confusion with another Caudron. The C.460 that flies today is a full-scale replica built for Tom Wathen by AeroCraftsman, led by Mark Lightsey, who had almost no original documentation to work from. Built almost entirely of wood and aluminum, the replica made its first flight on 28 January 2009 at Flabob Airport and was displayed at the Paris Air Show later that year. Its engine is a 260-hp LOM turbo, the original Renault unit being unobtainable, and its undercarriage is hydraulic rather than pneumatic. Renault purchased the replica in 2023 and displayed it at Le Bourget that year. After an extensive restoration, it flew again at the La Ferté-Alais airshow in May 2026.