what is it?
The Couzinet 70 was a French three-engined commercial monoplane designed and built by Société des Avions René Couzinet. The Couzinet 70 Arc-en-Ciel III ('Rainbow') was developed from the Couzinet 20 by René Couzinet. The Couzinet 70, which was larger than its predecessors, was developed originally as a mail plane for use of Aéropostale's South Atlantic service.
How to recognise it: 3 engines · 30 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 94 years ago, in 1932.
- Top speed is 2.2× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 30 m: about 7 cars parked nose to tail.
- Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 3 African elephants (~6 t each).
- Range of 6,800 km: Amsterdam to New York (≈5,850 km) without stopping.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1932-02-11
- introduced
- 1934
- number built
- —
- role
- long-range commercial monoplane
- makers
- René Couzinet
- engines
- 3× Hispano-Suiza 12Nb V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine
- length
- 16.2 m
- wingspan
- 30 m
- height
- 4 m
- max take-off weight
- 16.8 t
- top speed
- 280 km/h
- range
- 6,800 km
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q13469805, Wikipedia: Couzinet 70 (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.