Italian contenders to the NMBR-1 contest

[hesham]

From Aerei Nella Storia 61,

the SIAI SM.133 with more Info.

 

[Nik]

The '133' looks as if it has escaped from a 'Gerry Anderson' series, or inspired yet another of that studio's sleek 'looking Mach_2 while parked'...

Beyond the canards' long lever-arm from the laden c/g plus design's potential for 'stretch', what would be its likely characteristics ?
( Other than 'un-built', unless under license by eg Sweden... )

 

[Archibald]

Another woul-be contender to the NMBR-1 contest was the MB-324. Actually it started as an interceptor (config seen here) with two engines (Vipers?) and four guns. There was a two-place single-engine version for training (already posted in another topic). The interceptor wing was rather large and probabl could have been converted to the CAS role. Ing. Bazzocchi decided not to tender his project (so the official story goes) because he thought he had no chance... Probably someone counselled him to do so to not disturb FIAT. Ing. Stefanutti ignored the counseling and they had to resort to more "robust" manners...

What ? Was the situation is Italy THAT tense, in the late 50's ? Breguet was reportedly furious having lost to FIAT...

 

[Petrus]

Recently I've found a few of the MB-324 pictures elsewhere on the Internet. Apparently there were three variants of the project: (i) two-engined single-seat interceptor; (ii) single-engine two seater (maybe a trainer, a competitor to the Fiat G.80, but looking at its seating arrangement I think that it could have been an all-weather fighter rather than a trainer, for the rear seat is lower than the front one); (iii) a proposal for the NMBR-1 (if so, it must have had one engine, namely the Orpheus).

Below you'll find the pictures attached.

Any further info (regarding other specifications) would be appreciated.

Piotr

At http://forum.worldofwarplanes.com/index.php?/topic/2539-aermacchi-mb324/ you may find an explanation what the two-seat variant of the MB.324 really was:

Single-engined, two seater. Powered by Turbomeca Marboré.
Designed to test the arrow wing configuration. The same type of experiment was proposed by Stefanutti during the presentation of Vindex, even that was not realized.

Indeed its engine looks very small, much smaller than the DH Ghost, which was to be mounted in the Ghost-engined MB.324, so probably what is said in that forum is quite true. So, not a trainer, not an all-weather figher, but an experimental aircraft. I assume the back-seater was to be an engineer/operator of test instruments - not only was his seat located behind the pilot, but also below the pilot's seat.

Piotr