Caproni Ca.4

The Caproni Ca.4 was an Italian heavy bomber of the World War I era.

It shared the unusual layout of the Caproni Ca.3, being a twin-boom aircraft with one pusher engine at the rear of a central nacelle and two tractor engines in front of twin booms, providing a push-pull configuration.

[1] The main landing gear was fixed and consisted of two sets of four wheels each.

The Ca.4 was a three-engine, twin-fuselage[2] triplane of wooden construction with a fabric-covered frame.

At the time, Caproni referred to the various designs by the total power of their engines.

With Liberty engines, it had a fast speed, similar to other heavy bombers, while its bombload had one of the largest capacities of that era, surpassed only by that of the Imperial German Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI.

On 2 August 1919, after its wings apparently collapsed in mid-flight at an altitude of 3,000 feet (910 meters), a Ca.48 airliner crashed at Verona, Italy, during a flight from Venice to Taliedo, Milan.

The Ca.48 airliner
The Ca.52 (Caproni Ca.42) - second production series of Ca.4-Ca.40 family - Aircraft of N°227 Squadron Royal Naval Air Service