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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 1953.PDF
AUGUST 5TH, 1943 heir Characteristics FIAT G.12 RECTANCULAR CENTRE SECTION DIHEDRAL FROM FLAT RECTANGULAR CENTRE SECTION Span Length Height Wing area DIMENSIONS' 93ft. 9in. 65ft. 9in. (6ft. tin. / ,216 sq.ft. DESIGNED originally as a commercial airliner tocarry a crew of four and 14 passengers, the Fiat G.12has been used by the Regia Aeronautic/* as a military transport, though not in any great numbers. Presumably this is because not a great many had been built before Mussolini " muscled in " (in true gangster style) on Hitler's war racket, and the Fiat concern was thereafter fully occu- pied in producing fighters, bombers and engines for their own and other Italian aircraft. It is therefore one of the less well-known Italian trans- port aircraft, but, as will be seen by the dimensions given above, it is also one of the biggest. How many of the type are still in service it is, of course, impossible to say, but it can obviously be taken for granted that, in view of the marked decline in the strength of the Regia Aero- nautica, coupled with the hampering effects of R.A.F. visits to Turin and other centres of Italian war industry, the misguided Wops must be compelled to keep in service anything that can still be made to fly tolerably well. The Fiat G.12 (the G stands for the name of its de- signer, Gabrielli) conforms to the usual Italian preference for three engines, by which a reasonably good performance is obtained with comparatively small power units. In a transport type this arrangement does not incur the same handicap as in the case of a bomber, in which the nose of the fuselage is the ideal position for the bomb»aimer, but it does impair the aircraft's aerodynamical qualities, which is rather important if speed is a desirable feature. Powered by three 770 h.p. Fiat A.74 R.C.42 14-cylinder, double-row, air-cooled radial engines, the G.12 has a top speed of 236 m.p.h. at 15,744ft., a service ceiling of 26,240ft., and a range of 1,080 miles at a cruising speed of 186 m.p.h., and its gross weight of 27,500 lb. allows for a useful load of 8,404 lb. It is of all-metal construction, the fuselage being a duralumin monocoque structure and the wings having a rectangular centre-section of steel lattice-work and tapered outer panels in box-section duralumin.
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