Caudron C.74
The Caudron C.74 was a ten-seat, four engine passenger biplane built in France in 1922. It showed promise but the sole prototype crashed fatally in a competition and no more were completed. Design and development The C.74 was a large biplane, powered by four Hispano-Suiza 8Fb water-cooled, upright V-8 engines mounted in two pairs, each pair with one engine in tractor configuration and the other as a pusher. It was built from wood and steel and covered in plywood and fabric. An enclosed cabin could accommodate ten passengers. The C.74 had rectangular plan wings, with the upper plane slightly greater in span than the lower. It was a three bay biplane without stagger, with two sets of parallel, vertical interplane struts outboard and two sets of leaning parallel struts inboard on each wing. The latter met on the lower wing but diverged upwards in a narrow V, forming a cradle for an engine pair. Cabane struts joined the wing centre section to the upper fuselage longerons. The airliner had a flat sided fuselage with two open cockpits in tandem for the crew, one ahead of the wing leading edge and the other close behind but under the wing. The cabin