WesWorld

Another gun packed year.

Aircraft coming into service;
Reggiane Falco Fighter
CANT Z.506 Reconnaissance
Breda Ba.67bis with Alfa-Romeo 135 engine

First Flights;
Fiat G.50 Heavy Fighter
Fiat CR.36 Light Fighter
IMAM Ro 46 Reconnaissance


I'll probably add some more, haven't entirely decided on everything yet.

Are these in the Italian Air force thread?

IMAM Ro. 46

A lightweight carrierborne reconnaissance aircraft. The design is rugged and simplistic with a chrome-molybdenum framed fuselage, skinned with duralumin. The wings are duralumin and manually fold at the half way point. Landing gear is fixed. Arrestor hook is hydraulically powered with a handpump being located in the cockpit. Following Argentinean practice, a Sperry autopilot is fitted. The wing loading is extremely low, allowing low approach speeds and better handling at low speeds. The 2-3 man cockpit is completely sealed from the elements and a heater is fitted, being taken of the oil cooler. An Isotta-Fraschini Gamma RC.35 air cooled inverted Vee inline engine is fitted with a 2.5m diameter, 2 blade propeller. Armament comprises of 2 Gebauer 34M machine guns, one in the starboard wing and one on a flexible rear mounting, both with 500rounds. There is one ventral hardpoint for a 630kg torpedo and 6 wing hardpoints for 100kg depth charges.

Serie I
Year: 1936 Crew: 2-3 Engine: 1 * Isotta-Fraschini Gamma RC.35, 540hp
Wing Span: 40ft Length: 30ft Wing Area: 322sq ft
Empty Weight: 3460lb Max Weight: 6600lb
Max Speed: 224mph@11500ft Ceiling: 25000ft
Climb Rate: 650fpm Wing Loading: 20lb/sq ft
Armament: 2 x 7.7mm Gebauer 34M machine guns in starboard wing and rear fuselage
1 x 630kg hardpoint under fuselage
6 x 100kg wing hardpoints

400m radius with 450mm torpedo
10hr endurance with 4 x 100kg depth charges
Max range 3,100m

Quoted

Originally posted by Vukovlad
Are these in the Italian Air force thread?

They will be. Reggiane Falco and Ba.67 are. I need to add stats for the Z.506

CANT Z.506

Designed as a bomber and naval reconnaissance plane to supplement the Z.501, the Z.506 has a much larger range. Wood and fabric construction with metal floats. A deep fuselage houses an internal bay for a single 450mm torpedo. Armament comprises of a single13.2mm Scotti in a Breda electrically powered turret and a single 7.7mm Gebauer 34M in the ventral position.

Year: 1936 Crew: 5 Engine: 3 * 1700hp Alfa-Romeo 135 RC.45
Wing Span: 100ft Length: 65ft Wing Area: 1397sq ft
Empty Weight: 25332lb Max Weight: 55660lb
Max Speed: 290mph@15000ft Ceiling: 31,000ft
Climb Rate: 696fpm Wing Loading: 40lb/sq ft
Armament: 1 x 13.2mm Scotti in dorsal turret, 1 x 7.7mm Gebauer in ventral turret
Internal ventral bomb bay
8 x 100kg wing hardpoints

4500nm max range
2000nm radius with 1 x 450mm torpedo
30hours endurance

A bit small for 1700hp engines?

Is the Fiat A.80 RC 41 available for sale/licence or another radial ~1200Hp?

Not really small for 1700hp engines. The 135 is a double row 125/126 developed from the Bristol Pegasus. The aircraft is slgihtly overpowered, but added equipment will soon change that.

The Fiat A.80 is available and produces 1100hp at take off, 1000hp at 4100m. In a similar power range are the Alfa-Romeo 125 series and the Piaggio XI.

Hopefully the Piaggio is more reliable in WW...

GW would like to buy or buy the License for 80 Fiat A.80

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Originally posted by Vukovlad
Hopefully the Piaggio is more reliable in WW...

GW would like to buy or buy the License for 80 Fiat A.80

No problem for the licence.

The Piaggio P.XI isn't going to be in service with a lot of things, pretty much just the six Piaggio P.50 bombers at the moment.

Fiat CR.36
A single-seat, low-wing aircraft of conventional tailwheel configuration developed from the CR.35. It has a very light construction, being manufactured from moulded wooden composites. Experience in South America showed that the armament of 4x7.7mm machine guns was too light to be effective against modern bombers. With this in mind, various options were looked at to improve the armament but all added considerable weight which considerably hurt performance. Instead a thorough redesign was initiated with a view to reconditioning the existing airframes, of which there are over 500. The most notable change was a new forward fuselage, mounting a Alfa-Romeo Vortice RC.20/50/76 inverted vee engine with more power, development of the previous Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI having been terminated in 1934. This neccessated a few airframe changes, a plug being inserted aft of the cockpit and a larger tail to restore stability. A larger ventral radiator bay was installed in place of the previouis nose intake. Armament was increased to 4 x 13.2mm Scotti in the nose and wings which more than tripled the availiable firepower, even more so with the HEI 13.2mm rounds. The changes added considerably to the weight, which increased to 2300kg with the same wing. Manuverability and climb were found to be inferior, but the CR.36 retained the good flying characteristics of the previous CR.35.

The big beast, Fiat's heavy fighter design. Above shows series of drawings before settling towards final design. More details later.

co-axial contra rotating propellers in 1936.... Cant wait for the Turboprops

Twin inline engines, that sucker is going to be a beast to fly. And with that wing, forget about dogfighting. However it will make a good Reno Air Racer.

Quoted

Originally posted by Vukovlad
co-axial contra rotating propellers in 1936.... Cant wait for the Turboprops

In addition to the twin V-12 engines!
A beast indeed... will be interesting to see those performance numbers.

Quoted

co-axial contra rotating propellers in 1936

The Macchi C.72 has used them since 1931 and they have found to be quite effective. The engine on this is developed from the Fiat AS.6 and uses the same arrangement, mechanically separate driving a propellor each. Engine is a double flat-12 for reasons I'll go into later.

Quoted

And with that wing, forget about dogfighting

It should be pretty good actually, nice low wingloading and low aspect ratio helps with the rolling. Problem will be when they start crashing into the ground during diving tests.

One thing that's missing in the drawings are the radiators, which won't do great things for the aerodynamics.

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral

Quoted

co-axial contra rotating propellers in 1936

The Macchi C.72 has used them since 1931

But what was the date in regular service? The Fk.55 was to feature them as a regular service, but that plane-for other reasons granted- never saw service.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral

Quoted

co-axial contra rotating propellers in 1936

The Macchi C.72 has used them since 1931

But what was the date in regular service? The Fk.55 was to feature them as a regular service, but that plane-for other reasons granted- never saw service.

Not many aircraft built with it the first in regular service? Not sure but Fairey Gannet would be a guess ie post 1945

Now we are just waiting for the He-178...

Real-world? The earliest actual service date for a contra-rotating engined plane that I can find is the Griffon-powered Spitfire 21s and 22s that got the contra-rotating props, which was immediately post-WWII. There were some plans for late-war German aircraft with them that were never fielded, and some never-fielded US aircraft (like Howard Hughes' F-11) had them as well.

The first two have radiators (kind of small thought) the last one is missing it. And with two engines the radiators will be pretty big.

It should have pretty good rolling ability, but the wing seems a bit small and the plane does have 2 engines. The two engines also wont help with rotational inertia. The plane will roll very well but it won't be turning alot.