1:144 Caproni Ca.5
This is a 1:144 scale model of a Caproni Ca.5 bomber, more specifically a Ca.44. Since many painters choose their own mounting system, no peg is included on the plane. Pegs can be purchased separately in the Accessories section of this catalog.
The Caproni Ca.44 was the first in the series of large biplane Caproni Ca.5 bombers. The Ca.5's were somewhat larger than the Caproni Ca.3 bombers that preceded them. The Ca.44 went into service in early 1918 and served through the end of the war, with 255 of the various types built. It was reportedly harder to maintain than the Ca.3's.
Much of this unreliability came from the Fiat A-12 engines, which had mechanical and cooling problems. This became a bottleneck for Italian Aviation, as production of the Ca.3 bombers had been halted in anticipation of large numbers of Ca.5s taking their place. Nearly 4,000 had been ordered, later reduced to 3,650, but these numbers were far beyond what Caproni and the six licensed sub-contractors could produce. 115 were expected to be ready by May 1918, yet none were yet in service! By the time of the Armistice, 2,900 were supposed to be flying, but only 190 had been completed and only 57 of those were in the hands of front-line units.
So bad were the engine problems that few Ca.5s saw much operational action. Many remained in testing, familiarization, and in the repair shop through the end of the war. They continued to be produced through 1921 and overall 659 were completed.
Regia Marina, the Italian Naval Air Service, as well as the U.S. Army, Navy, Turkey, and some South American countries experimented with or obtained small numbers of them after the war. The U.S. had contracted for fifty Ca.5s with Liberty engines, but only five had been completed by the Armistice. And they were found to be lacking compared to the Liberty-engined Handley-Page O/400.
The French had moderate success at the license-produced Caproni Ca.3 and they may have also produced some Caproni 5's in the form of the C.E.P.3 BN3. They also purchased at least twenty directly from Italy in early 1918, and those were re-designated the CAP.3 BN3.
For more data and gaming info on this plane, see https://linen.miraheze.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.44.
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