The basic concept of the aircraft was based on locating the star engine in the fuselage, behind the pilot, at the center of gravity. Since Piaggio only built star engines, the solution to obtain a device with low aerodynamic resistance was to "mask" the thruster in the central section of the fuselage. Such architecture should also provide excellent maneuverability to the device and allow to concentrate a powerful armament in the nose. This configuration was identical to that of the P-39
Airacobra built in the United States by Bell, which made its first flight in 1938. The Piaggio project, led by Giovanni Casiraghi who had spent 9 years in the United States in the aviation industry , was submitted to
Regia Aeronautica on March 18, 1939. However, the priority of the moment being given to the rise of the front-line units, this experimental program took a long time.
The fuel was stored in 2 330 L tanks located in the wings and one 340 L in the fuselage, resulting in a total of 1000 L.
If the prototype was armed with only 2 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns located in the nose and pulling through the propeller disc, the standard armament provided for 2 additional 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns. and a 20 mm Breda gun.
Piaggio did not receive the order for a prototype, amounting to 2,280,000 lire, on June 2, 1941. The Piaggio factory in Finale Ligure already having a heavy workload, the MM.497 prototype was only completed in the second half of 1942. Ground tests began in November on the site of Villanova d'Albenga, while Nicolò Lana made the first flight on December 19, 1942. The first flight tests immediately showed a problem of overheating. engine, forcing the aircraft to fly with the hood flaps still open. The aerodynamic interference created by the latter was manifested by a tendency of the nose-up device. In addition, the engine could not be pushed at maximum speed because of the vibrations transmitted to the cell. Finally, P.119 was subject to a problem of centering, a difficulty that had also been faced by the fathers of the P-39. During the flight tests, all conducted from the field of Villanova d'Albenga, the various problems mentioned above prevented to determine the performance of the aircraft, particularly with regard to the speed and maximum speed. No firing attempts were made despite the installation of 2 12.7 mm machine guns in the nose.On August 2, 1943, during a landing, the malfunction of the brakes caused a swerving of the aircraft which caused some damage to the propeller and a winged salmon. Although easily repairable, the apparatus remained in the state until the armistice of September 8, 1943, date when the project was purely and simply abandoned.
The Piaggio P.119 was designed as a low-wing monoplane fighter with a fully metallic duralumin structure. The main gear, retractable by rotation towards the fuselage, was completely erased. The tail wheel was swiveling but not retractable. From the cockpit protected by a canopy opening by lateral tilting, the pilot enjoyed an excellent visibility, made possible thanks to the arrangement of the engine just behind the cockpit.
To drive the Piaggio P.1002 three-bladed propeller with a variable pitch of 3.3 m in diameter, the propeller shaft traversed the entire cockpit and nose and attacked the misaligned helical gearbox to accommodate the gun barrel. mm pulling through the hub. The ventral air intake, with a careful aerodynamics, was insufficient, as we saw earlier, to ensure proper cooling of the star engine Piaggio P.XV RC45 18-cylinder installed on the prototype. The air passed through a tunnel located under the cockpit before reaching the cylinder heads and being evacuated by the radially distributed flaps on the flanks of the fuselage, to the right of the trailing edge of the wings. Note that the prototype eventually had to receive a Piaggio P.XV RC15 / 60 equipped with a 2-speed compressor, which was never installed due to cooling problems. For the hypothetical exemplary series, Piaggio thought to move to the P.XV RC50 / 2V or P.XXII 1700 ch at takeoff. But these two engines were still not available at the time of the armistice.
Piaggio P.119