Savoia-Marchetti p.65

Savoia-Marchetti p.65
Type:	Float plane
Design country:	Italy
Manufacturer:	SIAI Savoia
First flight:	January 18, 1930
Number of pieces:	2 prototypes

Savoia-Marchetti S.65 was one of Savoia Marchetti developed in 1929, for the race provided floatplane . With a new technical concept, the Schneider Trophy was to be won and the prize brought back to Italy . However, one of the two prototypes crashed shortly after the first take-off, killing pilot Tommaso Dal Molin . The project was then abandoned.

history

After the British victory at the Schneider Trophy in 1927, the Italian aircraft manufacturers Macchi , Piaggio , Fiat and SIAI decided to build new aircraft to bring the prize to Italy. With the S.65, the designer Alessandro Marchetti developed a completely new concept for a racing seaplane. The Savoia had two engines arranged one behind the other in a gondola, each with a pull and a push propeller, with the pilot sitting between the two engines. This structural design of the aircraft corresponded almost completely to a concept presented by Dornier in October 1928 at the ILA in Berlin. Only the tail unit of the S.65 showed slight differences to the Dornier model shown there. The engines of the S.65 were two Isotta Fraschini Asso 2 500RIs, which generated 1050 hp at a speed of 3000 min ⁻¹ . The aircraft was mostly made of metal-reinforced wood.

Already in the construction phase there were difficulties with the attachment of the fuel tank and the oil cooling. After solving these problems, the S.65 was tested on the ground from July 1929. The struts between the swimmers turned out to be too weak; the tail unit had to be improved and the connections between wood and metal frame were revised, so that the tests had to be stopped by January 1930.

The first test flight was carried out on January 18, 1930 by Tommaso Dal Molin. The machine accelerated well on the water and flew about 300 m after take-off. At a height of 25 m and at around 200 km / h, the machine suddenly fell almost vertically into the water. The test pilot was thrown from the machine and died instantly.

The cause of the accident was never clarified. Presumably, however, the two Isotta Fraschini Asso 2 500RIs did not run synchronously, so that when accelerating a forward inclination was set which at some point could no longer be compensated by the tail unit. When this failed due to the overload, the S.65 fell almost vertically into the water. The project was then discontinued and the second page 65 was brought to the SIAI museum, where it stood until 1939.

construction

The S.65 was a low wing aircraft and with a takeoff mass of 3300 kg one of the heaviest aircraft that Savoia had built up to then. The wings themselves were made of reinforced wood and reinforced with metal in particularly stressed areas. The pilot sat in an open cockpit with a windshield in a gondola between the two engines, which later turned out to be very disadvantageous. The floats of the machine were made of metal and the tail unit of wood.

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data
span	10.70 m
length	9.5 m
height	2.80 m
Wing area	118.54 m²
Empty mass	3300 kg
drive	two Isotta Fraschini Asso engines with two-bladed propellers
Wing loading	177 kg / m²
crew	1

literature

• Giorgio Bignozzi, Roberto Gentilli: Aeroplani SIAI Marchetti: 1915–1935. Edizioni aeronautiche italiane, Firenze 1982, OCLC 799232922 .

Web links

Commons : Savoia-Marchetti p.65  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Documentation on page 65 with pictures (Italian)
• Documentation on page 65 with pictures (in Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günter Frost, Karl Kössler , Volker Koos: Dornier - from the beginnings to 1945. HEEL Verlag, 2010, p. 193