Fiat CR.1 - Design and Development

Design and Development

Regia Aeronautica requested two prototype aircraft of Fiat in the early 1920s. The results were designated MM.1 and MM.2, identical except for rudder (one had a rounded, counterbalanced rudder) and engines (they had differing marks of Hispano-Suiza piston engine).

The airplane was a biplane of conventional layout, with fixed tailskid landing gear and open cockpit, with the pilot's head aligned with the trailing edge of the upper wing. The V8 engine powered a fixed-pitch two-blade wooden propeller. The landing gear had a fixed axle between the wheels. It carried two synchronized 7.7 mm (.303 in) Vickers machine guns firing through the propeller arc.

The two prototypes were evaluated against another biplane fighter, the SIAI S.52, and proved superior in maneuverability and top speed. Accordingly, contracts were issued to three Italian companies for three batches of production aircraft, to be designated CR.1:

  • 109 units to be built by Fiat;
  • 40 units to be built by OFM of Napoli;
  • 100 units to be built by SIAI.

After two pre-production prototypes were again flight-tested, a total of 240 units were placed in Italian military service, beginning in 1925.

Read more about this topic:  Fiat CR.1

Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:

    “If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
    —Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)

    “If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp.... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”
    —Arthur Miller (b. 1915)