From gliders to CAARP

Auguste Mudry, born in 1917 in Seytroux, Haute-Savoie, was a military mechanic and pilot before the war and afterwards reorganised French gliding, becoming the first president of its national federation in 1966. In 1958 he set up CAARP, a cooperative of aeronautical workshops at Beynes near Paris, at first building aircraft designed by Claude Piel. From Piel’s Emeraude came the C.P.100, first flown in August 1968, which became the CAP 10.

The CAP 10

The CAP 10 was a two-seat wooden aerobatic trainer with a 180 hp Lycoming that would run inverted. The French Air Force bought it to train its pilots, the French Navy used a special CAP 10S to select naval aviators, and some 300 were built between 1970 and 2007. When CAARP stopped in 1978, Mudry moved production to Avions Mudry at Bernay in Normandy, and the CAP 10 led to the single-seat CAP 20 and CAP 21.

World champions in wood

In 1985 came the CAP 230, built for the French Air Force aerobatic team: still wooden, stressed to plus and minus 10 g and rolling at 270 degrees a second. Its successors won world titles in 1990, 1998, 2000 and 2007. Avions Mudry was liquidated in 1996, and Apex Aircraft took over the CAP 10 and CAP 232. Mudry died in Bernay in 2006; since 2021 Robin Aircraft has built an updated CAP 10C NG.

Fábricas

• Beynes · Beynes, Yvelines — CAARP workshops, 1958–1978
• Bernay · Bernay, Eure — Avions Mudry, 1978–1996

Pessoas

• Auguste Mudry · founder — 1917–2006; first president of the French gliding federation
• Claude Piel · designer — His Emeraude was the basis of the CAP 10

Recordes e pioneirismos

• CAP 231: world aerobatic champion 1990; CAP 231EX: 1998, 2000 and 2007