Best Italian Fighter of WWII

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special ed said:
It is still funny, as he was usually an excellent planner but never considered that the museum might be closed mid week.
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European museums opening times are odd and this is something that I've encountered over the years. You'll go somewhere with the intent of visiting because it is supposed to be open, then get there and its closed.
 
nuuumannn said:
European museums opening times are odd and this is something that I've encountered over the years. You'll go somewhere with the intent of visiting because it is supposed to be open, then get there and its closed.
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We visited Naples with the biggest intent being the Archaeological Museum of Naples. They were closed the ONE day we were there, and I totally missed that while planning...
 
I'm gone twice in Vigna di Valle (and it's within Bracciano) the first time many years ago, i was a boy, we find close, for works, but we are gone for one my cousin that was doing the draft there, the second time years ago with a Bracciano friend and was open, very interesting unlucky all the books were in sell there were too much expansive.
 
BiffF15 said:
We visited Naples with the biggest intent being the Archaeological Museum of Naples. They were closed the ONE day we were there, and I totally missed that while planning...
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When I was in Italy, I stayed at Torre Del Greco and spent an entire day at Herculaneum.
The "Scavi" is smaller than Pompeii, but so much better preserved and worth the visit.
 
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On the subject of G.59s, I do think it's a neat aeroplane. Here are some photos. I took this one back in the mid 1980s sometime at Coolangatta. This one was operated by the Late Guido Zuccoli in Australia and was converted into a single-seater at one stage and painted in a faux desert scheme.

Zuccoli Fiat

These two are of I-MRSV and were taken at Duxford in either 1997 or 1999. Can't remember.

I-MRSV i

I-MRSV ii

This is the one at the Italian air force museum.

G.59 nose

G.59 tail
 
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nuuumannn said:
It's made of bits of different aircraft. There are only three MC.205s left, all of which are in Italy and all of which are based on MC.202 airframes incorporating '205 bits. This is the one at the Bracchiano museum.
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I'm pretty sure those in Milan and at Macchi headquarters are late production series. The one in Milan should have been completed right before the armistice while the one at Macchi is possibly a leftover from those built right after the war for other countries.

You're right about the G.55 There is only one complete and original left sadly. There are some G.59s and one of them was rumoured to be in the process of being converted to a G.55 in flying conditions by fitting an DB605 in place of the Merlin. The original FIAT license built engines were close copies (unlike the Alfa Romeo Monsone which differed in several details from the DB601).
 
msxyz said:
There are some G.59s
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Take a look at the post directly above your last one. The top picture I posted was converted into a single-seater G.59, but it has been converted back again. I do vaguely remember reading about a conversion to fit a German engine to a G.59, but I haven't heard anything more.
 
Wonder if Reggiane 2005 had the range advantage over the G55 & 205 that the Reg 2000 had over early Aermacchi & FIAT fighters
 
keithwwalker said:
Wonder if Reggiane 2005 had the range advantage over the G55 & 205 that the Reg 2000 had over early Aermacchi & FIAT fighters
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I think tank capacity was slightly reduced from the earlier Reggiane fighters. The Re.2001 and 2002 carried around 600L of fuel (the Re.2002 could also carry 3 external tanks for an extra of 2x100L+240L), the Re.2005 around 520L internally. I've to retrieve the service manual of the latter because I'm going by memory and I may be wrong. In any case, I don't think the range of Italian fighters was spectacular since the distances they were forseeen to cover in an European theatre were quite short.
 
Here's another one of my drawings.




I love the looks of the Serie 5 fighters! They could stand some "cleaning-up" but, overall, they show typical Italian flair for aesthetic design. As for the cleaning-up, such as bubble canopies and the like, I suppose there was little incentive or money for that after the armistice.

They remain beautiful pieces of piston fighter design.
 
Beautiful drawings. It's not that Italian designs were dictated by aesthetics, but by careful wing tunnel modelling. In the '30s Italy was quite ahead in aerodynamics studies. At the onset of ww2, for example there were only two supersonic wind tunnels in Europe that I know of: one in Germany and one in Italy.

 
In my opinion the fiat g56 had the best potential of any axis fighter. It had better power and wing loadings than any german fighter with db603 or jumo 213. It also had better streamlining with fully enclosed landing gear and under belly radiator. Also the armament with 3 20 mm was ideal, the ammunition load excellent and the fuel load better than the fw190. The landing gear wide, far superior than the bf 109
It was a strong airframe that could receive future power upgrades and roll boosters. I dont know its max diving speed and g limits
About the production hours. I have read that it was calculated that could be reduced to 10000 hours. Now i believe that a G56 could be more than double efficient than a bf109 g6 on the western front. Even the G 55 with the Db605D and mw50 would be much better than any bf109
But more importantly. The germans could build the G56 instead of the me410 .With the resources they wasted on the me410 could have build more than twice G56s. Initially with no fully rated db603s.
In my opinion the real reason was that despite the hopeless war situation , the german companies wanted to produce their own designs.
By the way , also the c205 veltro with db605d, mw50 and wide blade propeller would be formidable low/mid altitude fighter until the end of the war
 
I think I'm right in saying the G-59 two seater had the front cockpit moved forward in much the same way as the Spitfire two seater. When the Zuccoloi machine was made into a single seater, it was simply by putting a fairing over the rear cockpit, pretty much a cosmetic conversion, there was no shifting of the front cockpit to the original position, so converting back to a twin was pretty simple too. Zuccoli G-59
 

I had an HO set of this train -- or at least a train in this livery -- when I was a lad ... a Lima set, I seem to remember.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
I had an HO set of this train -- or at least a train in this livery -- when I was a lad ... a Lima set, I seem to remember.
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Yep, Lima made those and also Rivarossi. There's a running joke in Italy that trains took less time from Milan to Rome during Mussolini's time than in all the years afterwards.

Funny fact: the train above scored a world speed record between Milan and Florence (316Km distance) in 115 minutes in 1939, the most difficult part being the mountain region between Bologna and Florence. Today you can board a high speed train (>300km/h on straight portions of the track) than runs on a dedicated high speed line, with new galleries that cut off most of the old track and yet it takes... 110 minutes (With a stop in Bologna in between).
 

Yup, I never saw it once it had been converted to a single-seater, but its been since re converted back to a two-seater. I do remember seeing a photo of it in Australia with the new colour scheme and the two-seat configuration redone. It's now in Europe, apparently and kept in airworthy condition, which is great to hear.
 
dedalos said:
In my opinion the real reason was that despite the hopeless war situation , the german companies wanted to produce their own designs.
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Agreed, but it certainly made sense for German factories not to switch production to an aeroplane that could promise better performance, but man hours and the cessation of production of existing types for production of a new type with marginal performance over other types was really not an option for the Germans in 1943/44, especially with the onset of jet aircraft performance, which of course the Germans had several programmes underway. Building G.55s/G.56s in Italy was really the only option if these aircraft were to see Luftwaffe service, but again, Milch decided that the time it was going to take to build them was just not worth the expenditure. The type did use German made engines, which meant less engines for German types... Kurt tank certainly saw the value in doing so, but nothing came of that either.
 
The tail aerodynamics seem better than most other fighters.
I really love the slender high aspect ratio wings of the Macchis but small wings like those of the Me 109 also mean less development potential although there were versions which featured a 21 sqm wings.
I would take the Fiat for its overall potential and relative ease of manufacture compared to the Reggiane.
 
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