Triplane - History - Bombers and Transports

Bombers and Transports

The Caproni Ca.4 of 1917 entered service with the Italian air force as a heavy bomber in 1918. It was a successful design for its day and many variants were produced. After the war Caproni re-numbered many of these variants as new types, including the Ca.48 airliner variant. In Italy's first commercial aviation disaster and one of history's earliest – and, at the time, deadliest – airliner accidents, a Ca.48 crashed while flying over Verona, Italy, on August 2, 1919, killing everyone on board (between 14 and 17 people). The unsuccessful Caproni Ca.60 prototype transatlantic seaplane had three sets of triplane wings taken from the Ca.4, making nine wings in all, and is generally classified as a multiplane.

From 1918, Bristol developed a series of heavy triplanes which, like the Caproni design, appeared in different variants aimed at different roles. The first was the Bristol Braemar bomber, flying in 1918 with the Mk II version in 1919. The Bristol Pullman 14-seat transport variant flew in 1920. This was followed by two examples of a new, larger design for a military freighter known as the Bristol Tramp.

The Tarrant Tabor, another and much larger British bomber, was built with three wings to carry the 6 engines required - four more powerful engines being unavailable. The power imbalance due to the high mounting caused to crash on its maiden flight in 1919. Its designer Walter Barling went on to design the similar-sized American Witteman-Lewis XNBL-1 triplane, known as the "Barling Bomber", which first flew in 1923.