CASA C-201 Alcotán

Le bimoteur Casa 201 vu sur Wikipedia.en

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The CASA C-201 Alcotán ("Kestrel") was a military transport aircraft produced in the early 1950s.


Design and development

The C-201 was the result of an agreement between the Spanish government and manufacturer [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] to develop a transport aircraft for the military capable of carrying a payload of one tonne over a range of 1,000 km (620 miles).

The design was a twin-engine low-wing [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of conventional configuration.

The main units of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] retracted into the engine [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], the aircraft looking somewhat like a scaled-down [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Two [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] were constructed, the first of these taking to the air on 11 February 1949.

An order for twelve pre-production aircraft and one hundred series aircraft was soon forthcoming.

The pre-production machines were to demonstrate a range of different equipment fits for the airframe, enabling it for a variety of roles including personnel transport, training for bombing and photo-reconnaissance work, and instrument
flying training.

A number of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] were also to be evaluated, including the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] that had powered the prototypes, the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], and the locally-produced [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Eventually, it was the supply of powerplants and propellers that doomed the Alcotán. Spain's domestic engine industry was simply incapable of producing powerplants in sufficient quantity for the project, and Spain was unable to afford to import foreign engines.

While the entire production run had been scheduled to be completed before 1955, the shortage of engines meant that by 1956, only eleven complete aircraft had been delivered, all that would ever be finished. In 1962, the project was finally cancelled without the engine problem ever having been resolved.

By now, CASA had 96 complete airframes in storage awaiting powerplants.

These were scrapped, the Spanish government compensating the manufacturer for the debacle.

Operators


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