Morane-Saulnier TRK

The Morane-Saulnier TRK was a large triplane with the engines mounted in the fuselage, facing outboard and canted upwards. The engines drove a propeller each, through driveshafts and bevel gearboxes, with the propeller gearboxes strut mounted beneath the middle mainplanes. Cooling for the engines was provided by a tall radiator stack above the centre of the fuselage, between the middle and upper mainplanes. The two tractor propellers ran just forward of the middle mainplanes.[1]

Two pilots sat in open cockpits side-by-side in the nose of the aircraft, which also had a wind-driven generator at the very tip. The third crew-member was housed in the rear fuselage and attended the engines in flight or operated defensive armament. The fixed undercarriage was of the conventional contemporary tail-skid type, with a nose-over protection wheel, strut-mounted under the nose. The left and right, strut-supported, mainwheel assemblies were of very wide track, with a wheel at each end of both axles.[1]

Data from Aviafrance : Morane-Saulnier TRK,[2] French aircraft of the First World War[1]

General characteristics

• Crew: 3
• Length: 16.38 m (53 ft 9 in)
• Wingspan: 20.22 m (66 ft 4 in)
• Wing area: 140 m² (1,500 sq ft)
• Powerplant: 2 × Canton-Unné A9 9-cylinder water-cooled radial piston engines, 170 kW (230 hp) each

Performance Armament

• Guns: 2 x 7.7 mm (0.303 in) machine-guns
• Bombs: Bombs carried internally