Italy’s Massive Triple Triplane – Caproni CA.60 Noviplano

today we look at yet another example of weird aircraft design from the 1920s to the 1930s a period of time where many people with limited aeronautical experience took leave of their senses and decided that if you slap enough wings or engines onto something of course it should fly russia gave us the kalanin k7 and the tupolev ant20 germany gave us the dornier dox and italy gave us the caproni 60 noviplano at first glance this aircraft doesn't look very aerodynamic and spoiler alert it didn't fly massively well either but it does have a rather curious history count giovanni caproni was a pioneering italian aviator who had founded the caproni aircraft manufacturing company in 1908. the company had achieved great distinction and success during the first world war and giovanni wanted to expand its influence in the emerging post-war commercial airline market there were already plans in place to convert some of caproni's wartime bombers into civilian transports but he had bigger plans than this the idea of the flying boat as a large transport was taking root amongst designers across many countries and italy was no different indeed giovanni had long foreseen the possibility of large flying boats and had even spoken about it as early as 1913. he decided to put his theory into practice in early 1919 when he took out a patent on a radical new design his goal like that of many other designers of the time was to build a revolutionary aircraft that could carry over 100 passengers as such he began his design work with a high level of redundancy in mind safety would be paramount and to improve the safety of his aircraft he designed it to be as reliable as possible first of all he would power his new aircraft with a number of engines so that if one or two failed then the aircraft would carry on flying without feeling the inclination to plummet out of the sky some new aircraft were being powered by three engines some of the bigger ones were even powered by four but the scale of giovanni's design meant that no fewer than eight engines were needed to satisfy his designs for both grandeur and mechanical safety a second layer of redundancy would be provided by its design as a seaplane being able to perform relatively safe and easy water landings provided the body of water was sufficiently large and smooth enough to accommodate the aircraft being a seaplane would also allow it to service a broader range of destinations as many countries lack to the infrastructure of established airports but at least ones with the coastline had large bodies of water available caproni stirred up interest in the new design during a company sponsored airfare at the caproni factory in september of 1919. preliminary construction of the aircraft had already begun and they now had enough interest and support to justify the expense of building a massive new hangar near lake maggiore where the construction of the novoplano would be completed a large team primarily consisting of contractors who had worked with caproni before descended upon the location to build the massive aircraft at the end of 1920 the united states ambassador to italy robert johnson visited the hangar to see giovanni's new aircraft and what he saw deeply shocked and impressed him it looks like in essence a small hotel suspended below a sea of spas wires engines and wings in fact it was a massive flying boat and despite its ludicrous appearance for 1920 its construction was quite remarkable its hull was suspended below three sets of triple superimposed wings that had been taken from the caproni ca4 triplane bomber each wing had a span of just over 98 feet and the flight control surfaces were composed of ailerons fitted on each wing the aircraft didn't have a traditional tail assembly something that critics claimed would be fatal to its design and so the horizontal stabilizers of which there were eight were mounted in the rear most set of wings this was hoped to provide a remarkable level of stability to an aircraft that looked about as stable as italy's politics in the early 1920s with giovanni remarking that the plane could be piloted with one hand at the controls thankfully they never attempted that particular endeavor staying true to the original design the novi plano was powered by eight engines these took the form of the powerful american-made 27-liter 400 horsepower liberty l12 v12 engines these eight engines drove eight propellers in a forward aft configuration in the forward wing two engines were mounted in a central hub one driving a forward-facing four-blade propeller and the other a pusher propeller the other two engines were each located on a nasal either side of this and each drove a forward-facing two-blade propeller the rear engines were of the same configuration except the two engines mounted in the outer nacelles powered pusher propellers instead of forward facing ones all of the nasals held radiators that were required to keep the engines cool and the two central nacelles each housed an open-air cockpit these cockpits each held a flight engineer who controlled the power output of the engines in response to commands given by the pilot direct communication was not yet possible and so the pilots and engineers relied on a series of complex control panels that used switches and lights to communicate the pilots and co-pilots were housed in an open-air cockpit that was positioned above the front of the main fuselage this fuselage ran along the entire length of the aircraft and many could be forgiven for thinking it resembled something more akin to a floating lake house rather than a passenger airliner this probably had something to do with the dozens of large windows that gave a panoramic view of the world outside the novi plano in the roof of this large cabin located around the central wing assembly was the fuel tanks that would feed the eight v12 engines as the engines were mounted some height above these tanks the fuel was required to be pumped up to them by using a series of primitive ram air turbines the novi plano was of course a large hydrofoil whose large hull was built to withstand the impact and general forces exerted by takeoff and landing on a body of water in addition to the main hull the aircraft was equipped with two side floats located under the central wing assembly which provided essential stability whilst the aircraft was afloat on water the hull and floats were designed by alessandro guidoni who is one of the most influential and well-known seaplane designers of the time and he designed everything for the nova plano from the ground up so unique was the design by january of 1921 the huge aircraft was finally complete and ready to begin test flights in its completed state it boasted a length of 77 feet a wingspan of 98 feet 5 inches a maximum height of 30 feet and it weighed approximately 14 tons empty and 25 to 26 tons fully loaded in terms of performance it was never expected to break any speed records it was expected to carry 100 passengers at the very sedate speed of 81 miles an hour with an estimated range of 356 nautical miles several delays frustrated giovanni caproni from seeing his vision take flight the lake's water level was lower than expected prompting an extension of the launch ramp from the hangar and some of the wing ribs of the nova planner were then broken when trying to move it finally on february the 9th the novi plano was put into the water at last and to the immense relief of all present she stayed afloat the aircraft was put through a series of surface water maneuvers to test its water handling and to ensure that the hull and framing could sustain the relevant forces these maneuvers were witnessed by giovanni and other important members of italian aviation and members of the aviation press all of them were impressed by the aircraft's imposing design though a few remained skeptical with one onlooker remarking that it resembled a leftover from the spanish armada an unfortunate comment as rough weather set in shortly after which curtailed subsequent to demonstrations for that day surprisingly these initial tests actually found the aircraft was too light rather than too heavy especially towards the bow during acceleration tests this had caused its stern to be pressed into the water causing some leakage of water into the rear of the fuselage the bow was then loaded with ballast for the next tests as the aircraft was already developing a tendency to lift into the air well before her test pilot had any notions of doing so after this further tests proved more successful and giovanni was confident enough to begin proper test flights of the novoplano it is here that we come into a bit of debate about the true test flight of the aircraft on the one hand it is stated that the aircraft first rose off the water's service on february the 12th 1921 however the gianni caproni aeronautical museum lists the first flight being march the second so we will go on the assumption of the latter the novel plano was loaded with ballast and successfully took off to perform a brief but stable flight however it was noted that the aircraft still had a tendency to want to pitch up and rise suddenly the second flight took place two days later on march the 4th once again the plane accelerated along the water when it approached to 70 miles an hour the pilots pulled the stick back and the aircraft's nose pitched up but then it continued to rise rapidly the pilots immediately cut throttle but the novoplano had already reached a dangerous angle of pitch and its tail dropped suddenly as the rear triple wings stalled it quickly impacted the water followed by the nose the forward wing collapsed under the force of the impact and the nose of the plane buckled remarkably the central portion of the aircraft remained almost completely intact at this point the pilot and flight engineers escaped the incident with no major injuries giovanni caproni had not been there to witness this incident having been delayed along with his photographer as a result of this there is no photographic record of this flight and the incident but there are numerous records of the damaged nova planner after the incident took place there are conflicting theories on the cause of the accident some suggest that the pilot was forced to lift up sharply to avoid a passenger boat that was traveling along the lake another suggests that the sandbags used as ballast to simulate the weight of passengers had shifted to the rear of the novoplano during takeoff resulting in an untenable movement of its center of gravity by all accounts the latter is probably the correct one but there is still some debate to this day as to the exact cause of the incident the nova plano would never fly again already damaged it was further wrecked during efforts to tow it ashore by boat all of the wooden parts would have needed to be rebuilt and the costs of repairs were considered beyond caproni's capabilities giovanni did lobby to produce a smaller version of the nova plano but the changing political spheres in italy eventually meant that promised funding never arrived and the project was abandoned completely parts of the novi plano survived to this day giovanni caproni was convinced of its historical importance and he had a passion for preserving italian aviation history the two pontoons the lower front section of the main hull a control panel and one of the liberty engines are now displayed at the caproni museum in trento italy the aircraft was recently propelled back into fame when it was featured in the 2013 studio ghibli film the wind rises [Music] you

Channel: Rex's Hangar

Views: 247,990

Keywords: aviation history, military aviation, caproni, caproni ca.60, Italy’s Massive Triple Triplane, Caproni CA.60 Noviplano, giovanni caproni, ww1, seaplane, aircraft design, aviation, civil aviation, italy, italian aircraft, planes, weird airplanes, strange aircraft, flying boat, triplane, hydrofoil, 1920s aircraft, air, airliners, extraordinary airplanes, commercial aircraft, noviplane, noviplano, engineering, giant planes, massive planes, experimental aircraft, the wind rises, studio ghibli

Id: rwa9unx9mpQ

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/seanrm92]

Le vent se lève! Il faut tenter de vivre!

[u/cloudubious]

I swear 70 percent of the planes in this sub are all in "The World's Worst Aircraft".

[u/archman125]

You have ask yourself why?

[u/legsintheair]

See, this thing is gloriously weird. The PBY - much much less so.