Italian planes

??? After studyin the site "www1fighter" (http://www.ww1fighters.com/)

I came to conclusion, that Italian planes were faster and could longer stay in the air, than almost all legendary English, French and german planes.
For example it is said there, that "Ansaldo S.V.A. 5"
had maximum speed of 230 km/h and could stay in the sky for... 6 hours, and the best allied and axis
fighers could fly only for a few hours...

[Angiolillo]

Well, the SVA was actually very fast. It has been designed as a fighter, but Baracca tested it at the front and wrote that it was not so manoeuvrable and that the access to the machineguns was not so handy (so they were not so easy to unjam). No technical data explains why it should be worse than, let's say, a SPAD XIII. Anyway, nobody dared to give a better opinion after Baracca, so the plane was not adopted as a fighter.

As far as the flying time allowed, please remember that the SVA has been used for the Flight over Vienna, starting from San Pelagio at 500 km of distance. The flight has been of 6.50 hours.

Any offence to the Austrian capital by the Italian planes has been avoided. The decision was to do onlòy a demonstration flight. The planes dropped 50.000 copieds of a leaflet written by d'Annunzio and 350.000 copies of a more effective one by Ojetti. The latter was both in Italian and in German and said, more or less, that the planes could have bombed Vienna but Italy was not in war with children, women and elders, and that Austria would have been riuned if it kept on fighting "with the Prussian uniform".

You can see a SVA with the colors of the Raid over Vienna at the Italian Air Force Museum on the Bracciano lake. If it is a bit too far from you, just click here:

http://web.tiscali.it/no-redirect-tiscali/.../SVA5-Vigna.htm

And now the official communicate from the Italian Supreme Command (I roughly translate it for you on the spot).

- - -

Warzone, August 9th 1918. a patrol of eight national planes, a two-seater and seven single-seaters, under the command of Major d'Annunzio, execudet today a brilliant raid over Vienna, flying a total of about 1000 Km, of which more than 800 over enemy land. Our planes, that left at 5.50 a.m., after overcoming difficult weather, reached at 9.20 a.m. the city of Vienna, over which they dived at less than 800 m., dropping many thousands of leaflets.

Along the streets of the cities, the crowd of the population was clearly visible.

Our planes, that did not aroused any reaction from the enemy, flew back over Wiener-Neustadt, Graz, Lubiana and Trieste. The patrol left all together, kept a tight formation along all the way and was back to the airport at 12.40.

Only one of the planes is missing: because of troubles at the engine, it seems that has been forced to land near to Wiener-Neustadt.

- - -

Zona di guerra, 9 agosto 1918. Una pattuglia di otto apparecchi nazionali, un biposto e sette monoposti, al comando del maggiore d'Annunzio, ha eseguito stamane un brillante raid su Vienna, compiendo un percorso complessivo di circa 1000 chilometri, dei quali oltre 800 su territorio nemico. I nostri aerei, partiti alle ore 5.50, dopo aver superato non lievi difficolta' atmosferiche, raggiungevano alle ore 9.20 la citta' di Vienna, su cui si abbassavano a quota inferiore agli 800 metri, lanciando parecchie migliaia di manifesti.

Sulle vie della citta' era chiaramente visibile l'agglomeramento della popolazione.

I nostri apparecchi, che non vennero fatti segno ad alcuna reazione da parte del nemico, al ritorno volarono su Wiener-Neustadt, Graz, Lubiana e Trieste. La pattuglia parti' compatta, si mantenne in ordine serrato lungo tutto il percorso e rientro' al campo di aviazione alle 12.40.

Manca un solo nostro apparecchio che, per un guasto al motore, sembra sia stato costretto ad atterrare nelle vicinanze di Wiener-Neustadt.

[Angiolillo]

>As far as the flying time allowed, please remember
>that the SVA has been used for the Flight over
>Vienna, starting from San Pelagio at 500 km of
>distance. The flight has been of 6.50 hours.

This was not considered the maximum that could be attained. A few days after, d'Annunzio wrote to the director of the newspaper "Corriere della Sera": "I designed a new flight to Budapest. For propaganda, it would be of great effect. But there are resistences... After we managed to do something, we rest for a couple of years. Think about the immediate efficacy of a new blow. It is just a hundred of kilometers more..."

During test flight in early september 1917, while he was planning the Raid over Vienna, d'Annunzio flew for 10 hours in a row...