Breguet's Pre-1914 Challenge # 007

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Rbailey

Paolo - glad to have your knowledge of Italian aircraft. We need it.

Time to end this challenge. My source for it was Cobianchi's book (which I do not have, but have some exerpts from). He identifies the challenge machine as the Tonini-Bergonzi canard monoplane tested in May 1912, He gives the Tonini-Bergonzi-Negri as tested in August 1913. It is a more elegant machine - see below. He also identifies a totally different 1913 machine as "Italia", so there remain some uncertainties about the exact designation. This may not be unusual for some of these early machines. Paolo's photos look like the challenge and so would be the T-B machine of the challenge (unless there was a second version of it, and overall 3 machines, which would be consistent with 3 entries in the trials - idle speculation on my part). Cobianchi gives a lot of information about early Italian aviation, but very little about the machines themselves, and I have no way of judging his accuracy.

The interesting machine depicted on this picture is a completely new canard design, differing in all significant parts like fuselage, undercarriage and powerplant. There is a sort of royal sign (Italian ?) on the rudder in front.

It may be that the machine was not continued by lack of funds and insufficient support of the Italian military, who were surely the only buyers in the market for these planes. As the Italian military was mainly oriented on French planes there remained only licence production for Italian firms to earn some money. For airplane designers and manufacturers in Italy these were hard times. Even the firm of Caproni folded in 1913/1914 only to be taken over by the Italian government. After a short time he started his own firm again.

Cheers

Kees

[Rod_Filan]

It goes without saying that Italian machines are underrepresented in theaerodrome--and when brought up, rarely inspire much interest and comment. But this example Rbailey, was truly a worthy challenge.
I have to say; without a pilot seated in Paolo's second photo, I would have sworn it was a tractor. Reminds me of that old joke...probably from WWII...

Q: How many gears does an Italian tank have?
A: Four. One forward and three reverse.

Cheers
Rod

[paolomiana]

According to Tonini-son book, the steamlined aircraft was the Italia-1. It damaged by Tonini-father during an attempt to land.
Due to lack of funds and because of underpowered airframe, Tonini shift to a more "rough" and light configuration: the Italia-2 subject of this challenge.

the joke of Rod must be WWII, during WWI Italians (and AU) have no tank units. You can't use it on Alps.

Cheers

Paolo