If It Can Fly, It Can Float!!!

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Good looking airplane. But they only built one. They found the two control approach did not work well for floatplanes - you really need rudder control to maneuver on the water. Aside from that, pulling up to a dock must have been a nightmare with that low wing. As one pilot with some seaplane experience put it, "You don't have to be that great of a pilot to fly a seaplane, but you have to be one hell of a sailor!"

The final kicker was when the prototype came apart during a test dive. The pilot bailed out successfully, but that was the end of the concept.

Note how they have those panel riveted below the prop and just above the bottom of the nosebowl. Normally the carb air intake is at the bottom and there is a hole under the prop to put air over the oil tank to help cooling (or to handle an oil cooler if so equipped). But they must have had trouble with water spray getting into the intake and thus covered those two holes and added one in the middle for the carb air.


 
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No one does it like the Italians - aircraft in the aviation museum on the shore of Lake Bracchiano.

Austro-Hungarian Lohner.

Lohner

Savoia Marchetti S.56.

S.56A

Fiat C-29.

C-29

Schneider Trophy winning Macchi M.39.

M.39 ii

Macchi M.67.

M.67

World speed record class holder Macchi MC.72.

MC.72 i

Ship based observation IMAM Ro.43.

Ro.43

CANT Z.506 Airone.

Z.506 iii

Yes, this place blew me away.
 
You had us going man! You were winning today's thread! Then? Z.506.
 

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