What If?----Italian Racing Engines Used In Fighters

[Mustang1957]

In The Late 1920's And Early 30's Fiat [And Afew Others] Produced Some Very Powerful Inline Engines For All The Italian Seaplane Racers For That Time.My Question Is Why During WWII The Italian Aircraft Designers Macchi, Fiat And Reggiane Had To Depend On The German DB-601 And 605? You Would Think Some Of Those Racing Engines Could Have Been Adopted For Military Use? Any Thoughts? Dale

 

[Bill Walker]

Well sure, if the Italian Air Force was happy with engines with 45 minutes TBO.

 

[Schneiderman]

45 minutes if they were lucky, most failed long before the race was complete.

 

[Mustang1957]

Maybe The military Cut Funding For Engine Development? :-\

 

[red admiral]

The Fiat AS.6 after development in 1933/34 actually seemed to be pretty reliable for the time. I have some documents on the ground tests stashed away somewhere, but the engine would run fine for an hour at maximum power of 3,100hp and many hours at reduced power.

Now when running on actual aviation gasoline available at the time the power would be reduced significantly, but I'm pretty sure that you could get ~2,000hp from that engine reliably. However it was a big engine (although not that heavy) which required a much bigger fighter than the CR.32/42 around at that time. Would fit in the G.55 with a little work...

 

[Mustang1957]

Thanks Red Admiral. I Know Alfa Romero Was Building The DB-601 and 605 Under License,But Wondered Why The Italians Didn't Do Much On Their Own During The War.

 

[red admiral]

Thanks Red Admiral. I Know Alfa Romero Was Building The DB-601 and 605 Under License,But Wondered Why The Italians Didn't Do Much On Their Own During The War.

The Italian own-build project was the Fiat A.38 inverted V-16 engine that grew out of the Fiat AS.8 racing engine. But this was quite a bit later than Merlin or DB601 given the mid-30s refocus on radial engines like the A.74.

 

[pathology_doc]

Compare the RR Griffon, which was IIRC a direct outgrowth of the Schneider Trophy R engine. Fighters (Spitfire XII) using it didn't reach full squadron service until 1943 and the ultimate development* thereof (the F.XIV) wasn't until 1944, by which time Italy (as a discrete national entity) was out of the war.




* = Yes, yes, I know; Spitfire 21s did see active service in World War 2, but very late and in very small numbers, and neither they nor the Seafire F.47 (in Korea) ever made an air-air kill AFAIK.

 

[red admiral]

The Griffon had little in common with the racing r engine besides cylinder dimensions. A lot of the technology from the r was inserted into the Merlin. A similar new build engine using the same technology would probably be a better way for italy to go as well.