Fiat CR.42 Falco biplane fighter

[MiloMorai 0]

10 hours ago, shep854 said:

Thanks for amplifying, MiloMorai!  Always more to learn.

Maybe it was on another board, was a long time ago, but it went into much more detail on the a/c. I couldn't find it but didn't look that hard.

[RETAC21 0]

Not biplane, but see this and try to not have your head explode

[sunday 0]

The reverse Buchón!

[shep854 0]

And the Marines were flying these out of Samoa through '42:

 

Edited January 18 by shep854

[lucklucky 0]

Is that a fake?

[R011 0]

9 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

Is that a fake?

No, the Germans really did fit a DB-605 engine to a captured Spitfire V.  It was later destroyed in an air raid.

[bojan 0]

And there was a Hurricane with DB601A engine:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=52684.0

Edited January 19 by bojan

[Yama 0]

Finns drew up plans for a Mosquito copy which would have used DB 605 engines. Plan required Germany to deliver reasonably intact examples. However, Finnish aircraft industry was so overworked that this complicated project would have taken years to produce anything flightworthy and the project was given up in favour of acquiring more Ju-88's, which also never materialized.

 

 

[lucklucky 0]

Thanks R011

------

The German equivalent was more the Me210/410

[MiloMorai 0]

Spitfire Vb (EN830/NX-X) fell into German hands late in 1942. On November 18th while being flown by P/O Bernard Sheidhauer of the Free French Air force, attached to 131 “County of Kent” Sqn RAF, he and his No.1 P/O Henri de Bordas had been on a “rhubarb” (an RAF World War II code name for operations by aircraft seeking opportunity targets).

Making land fall at St Aubin sur Mer they picked up and followed the Caen to Cherbourg railway attacking several targets along the way.

During the mission they were met by flak and purposely avoided Carentan because of the concentration of flak in the area.

Over the small town of Ecausseville, de Bordas lost sight of his partner, he continued to circle for as long as he could, but to no avail.

MesserSpit - The Case of Captured and Re-engined Spitfire EN830 - Aviation Humor

 

The pilot later took part in the Great Escape and was one of those killed by the Gestapo.

[shep854 0]

Not quite as eye-watering as the Merlin-equipped Spanish Bf variant...

[Ariete! 0]

The CR42 was clearly obsolete and has been noted reflects misguided priorities on the part of the Regia Aeronautica fighter community.

In any case, when discussing Italian WW2 procurement one must always bear in mind the appallingly low production rates which made the equally outsized delays in transitioning to new models particularly costly. Thus some obsolete models were kept in production longer than seems reasonable through the late 30s and the war.

 

 

Edited January 28 by Ariete!

[MiloMorai 0]

The Italians had some good mid/late war fighters but too little too late.

 

Re.2005 Sagittario ("Archer") Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario (Archer) (militaryfactory.com)

Macchi C.205 "Veltro" ("Greyhound") Macchi C.205 Veltro (Greyhound) (militaryfactory.com)

Fiat G.55 Centauro (Centaur) Fiat G.55 Centauro (Centaur) (militaryfactory.com)

[Markus Becker 0]

Not just mid war. The C.200 came out around the same time and was a modern monoplane. 

[lucklucky 0]

C.200 will not call it modern. Open cockpit and slow but very maneuverable. Eric Brown liked it and said it out turned Spitfires V.

The first modern will call the C.202 with DB601. A case can be made for Reggiane 2000 but was not accepted by RA except in small numbers.

[Wouter2 0]

On 1/14/2021 at 7:13 PM, lucklucky said:

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/falco_belgium.htm

Report on Cr.42 vs Bf 109, a small number of combats, Belgian pilots with short training but they got a certain 1:1 or even got more Bf 109 than losses.

Report on Belgium Gladiator vs Bf 109

https://www.belgian-wings.be/gloster-gladiator

The CR42 did well in the Belgian Air Force, surprisingly. Better than the Gladiator, which was involved in a catastrophic attempt to bomb bridges at Vroenhoven, Veldwezelt and Kanne. Besides the lost Gladiators, I think 6 out of 9 Battles were lost also. Bombs to be used were only 50kg so the mission couldn't even have been succesfull.

As an aside, almost all the Hurricanes of the BAF were destroyed on the ground in the first German air attacks. Galland's story about shooting down Belgian Hurricanes can't have been right, there was never a formation of BAF Hurricanes in the air after the early hours of 10 may 1940. He either mistook RAF Hurricanes, or French fighters, or he made it up.

[Markus Becker 0]

19 hours ago, lucklucky said:

C.200 will not call it modern. Open cockpit and slow but very maneuverable. Eric Brown liked it and said it out turned Spitfires V.

Slow? On paper but 500 kph was what, 5% less than an early Hurricane?  

[lucklucky 0]

It only entered service in 1940 by that time i think Hurricane already improved to Mk II. But Spitfire, Bf 109, Dewoitine 520 were much faster.

[DB 0]

The Mk II Hurricane preferentially received improved Merlins (XX, I think) precisely because its performance was already considered marginal in 1940.

[lucklucky 0]

Yes. Btw Fiat still sold around 200 CR-42 to the Luftwaffe in 1944 for night harassment and anti-partisan work.

[Yama 0]

On 1/31/2021 at 3:19 PM, Markus Becker said:

Slow? On paper but 500 kph was what, 5% less than an early Hurricane?  

Allegedly 500km/h....in real life, probably rather less. According to Finnish tests, Fiat G.50, which had the same engine, could not pass 450km/h.

Also, Macchi had same armament than other Italian fighters (ie. good for biplane era, but obsolete after 1940), no seat armours and poor range.

[Markus Becker 0]

1 hour ago, Yama said:

Allegedly 500km/h....in real life, probably rather less. According to Finnish tests, Fiat G.50, which had the same engine, could not pass 450km/h.

That doesn't say much if anything about the C.200. Spitfires and Hurricanes had the same engines too for a while. 

[Yama 0]

However, it makes you doubt about objectivity of Italian testing practises...particularly in pre-War aircraft, performance inflation for brochures was commonplace (not just in Italy) and once the planes were painted, equipped, fuelled and armed, performance often was quite far what was reported and those numbers still circulate in literature.

[lucklucky 0]

The numbers for C200 are not difficult to achieve with that engine Fiat A.74 840cv 3800m  and the official data generally was reliable.

The max speed of C200 measured in Feb 1940  was 496kph at 4200m 2450kg with seat armor. 16.8m2  4m48 to 4k, 7m49 to 6k

for G.50 measured in Jul 40. 469kph at 4000m  2696kg with seat armor. 18m2, 4m40 to 4K, 7m24 to 6k

for CR.42 was 431kph at 4500m(Feb 40), obviously much more drag with biplane config. 2287kg no armor 22.35m2,  5m26 to 4K, 9m09 to 6K

for Caproni F5 max speed was 482kph at 4500m(Dec 41) 2329kg no armor 17m2, 3m48 to 4k, 6m47 to 6k

all except the Macchi had a Fiat-Hamilton propeller.

Reference is an Italian RA official document.

Note that Macchi has the least wing area, which benefits speed but makes it is worse at high altitude. As can be seen from tests there almost a 30kph difference in speed from C.200 and G.50.

 

 

 

Edited February 2 by lucklucky

[shep854 0]

Followup to the Helldiver video, discussing the very sad French connection:

 

Edited February 4 by shep854