what is it?
The Caudron C.690 was a single-seat training aircraft developed in France in the late 1930s to train fighter pilots to handle high-performance aircraft. It was a conventional low-wing cantilever monoplane that bore a strong resemblance to designer Marcel Riffard's racer designs of the same period. Caudron attempted to attract overseas sales for the aircraft, but this resulted in orders for only two machines - one from Japan, and the other from the USSR. In the meantime, the first of two prototypes was destroyed in a crash that killed René Paulhan, Caudron's chief test pilot.
How to recognise it: 1 engine · 7.7 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 90 years ago, in 1936.
- Top speed is 2.8× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Range of 1,100 km: 6× Amsterdam to Brussels.
- Can fly 1.1× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1936-02-18
- number built
- 19
- role
- fighter trainer
- engines
- 1× Renault 6Q-05
- length
- 8 m
- wingspan
- 7.7 m
- max take-off weight
- 980 kg
- top speed
- 370 km/h
- range
- 1,100 km
- ceiling
- 9,700 m
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q39927, Wikipedia: Caudron C.690 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.