The C.430 Rafale was a two-seat development of the single seat
Caudron C.362, the winner of the 1933
Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. Slightly larger and heavier, though with a lower
wing loading, the Rafale was a low wing
cantilever monoplane, wood framed and covered with a mixture of
plywood and
fabric. Its one piece, single
spar wing was strongly straight tapered to elliptical tips and was
plywood covered with an outer layer of fabric. There were
flaps inboard of the
ailerons. Its
fuselage was flat sided and fabric covered, with a deep, rounded decking running the full length. It had an air cooled inverted four cylinder
inline Renault 4Pei Bengali engine in the nose, driving a two blade, two position variable
pitch propeller. The Rafale's two seats were in tandem, one over the wing and the other behind the
trailing edge, under a long (about a third of the fuselage length), narrow multi-framed canopy with a blunt, vertical windscreen and sliding access. Behind the canopy a long fairing continued its profile to the straight tapered, round tipped vertical tail, which included a
balanced rudder that ended at the top of the fuselage. The tapered horizontal tail, with inset
elevators, was mounted on the top of the fuselage largely ahead of the
fin. Construction of the
empennage was similar to that of the wing. The Rafale had a fixed
tailskid undercarriage. Its wheels were on vertical legs from the wings and were largely enclosed within magnesium
spats. A replica of Helene Boucher's F-AMVB was built by Jean Precetti, which is now on display at the Musée de l'Air d'
Angers. In 2023, Renault introduces the Renault Rafale vehicle as a tribute to the Caudron C.430 Rafale. ==Operational history==