Fiat C.R.42, shows italys ineptitude

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Italy was weak in the design of modern aero engines

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

Before the war broke out, British Coastal Forces wanted them for their MTBs. The Napier Lion was limited to about 500 horsepower, so Vosper used the Isotta-Fraschini Asso 1000 marine engine in the Thorneycroft 1938 Class boats -- during trials the ASM 183 variant was used and this engine produced 1,150 horsepower at 1,800 rpm. By all accounts I've read, the Asso 1000 was a pretty good powerplant and the only one in its class at the time. Later, British Power Boats developed prototypes using converted Merlin engines, but obviously they were desperately needed for aircraft.

The original development contract for the Isotta-Fraschini marine engine was provided by the Russians for their MTBs, although the Italian Navy improved it further for their MAS boats from 1929.

[Csaba B. Stenge]

I agree with Schenck: according to my knowledge, the CR 42 was a wery popular type among the German Nachtschlacht pilots.


In the Hungarian Air Force, the fighter pilots simply adored the CR 42. Altough it was an obsolete type in 1941, the Hungarian fighters used it very succesfully against the soviet fighters because of its excellent flying characteristics.

So, more respect to the Falco

[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?

[Primoz]

Italy was indeed very weak in the design of aero engines. Hardly any of their engines achieved more than 1000 HP. For instance, The Fiat A 80 was probably the weakest 18-cyl engine ever built.

[knusel]

Hello there,

I've just finished reading Luigino Caliaro's CR42 article in AVIONS. If I understand the text correctly the CR42 fought only two engagement in the Battle Of Britain (11Nov and 23Nov). They claimed 14 destroyed+4 probables which correspond to 0(!) verified destructions of British aircraft.
Luckily, for biplane enthusiasts like me the CR42 was more successful in other theatres...

Cheers,

Michael