Fiat C.R.42, shows italys ineptitude

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

That's odd. In the 1930s the Italians were ahead of everyone else in developing supercharged aircraft engines for torpedo boats.

That's interesting and I'm certainly in no position to doubt you! They also managed to build highly-competitive racing seaplanes between the wars (and racing cars, as they still do!). They did however use licence-built Daimler-Benz inlines for all their later fighters.

I'm sure too that I read a remark somewhere that designers usually built trimotor aircraft (of which Italy had several types, some very successful) when they didn't have a motor powerful enough to do the job with just two. Maybe that's just prejudice though?