cheddar cheese said:
Is that really the only difference? They look totally different!
It's the only difference.
In the post war years Ing. Ambrosini, owner of SAI Ambrosini and designer itself (SAI 403 was partly his work), acquired the IMAM and gave life to AERFER with Stefanutti as chief designer.
He want to partecipate to the trials for trainers and fighters of the new Aeronautica Italiana, but the AERFER was a small firm that didn't have the possibility to try it's design in a wind tunnel, so the new solutions had to be tried in flight.
First, Ing. Ambrosini adventurosely found a Jumo 004 (now exposed at the Vigna di Valle Museum) to study the installation of a jet engine, then Ing. Stefanutti modified a SAI S-7 (that was a SAI 207 with a different engine) with swept wings and tail to study aerodinamic; finally, the same aircraft, renamed "Sagittario I" was fitted with a 400 kg Turbomeca "Marboré" jet engine.
So, the second italian post-war jet to fly (being the first Gabrielli's Fiat G-80) was a wooden jet!
These early experiences brought first to the Aerfer Sagittario II, a light interceptor (2500 Kg of dry weight, two 30 mm guns, max speed 1,040 km/h and the possibility to take off from not-prepared surfaces, like a WWII fighter) equipped with a 1600 kg Rolls-Royce Derwent Mk.9-46, that was the first italian aircraft to break the sound barrier in controlled flight (in dive).
then, to the Aerfer Ariete, a study of the possibility to fit an additional booster into the Sagitario II fuselage (the second jet engine of the Ariete was the substitute of the booster).
The final evolution had to be the Aerfer Leone. Equipped with a 3090 kg Bristol Orpheus BOr.12, and a 4100 kg De Havilland Spectre kerosene booster, it was intended to be able of supercruising with only the jet engine, and to reach Mach 2,34 with the booster but, for a sudden shortage of funds, the Leone project was aborted.
DogW