The Breda Ba.15 was a two-seat light aircraft produced in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

in 1928.

Design and development

It was a high-wing braced

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

of conventional design that seated the pilot and passenger in tandem within a fully enclosed cabin. Ba.15s were fitted with a wide variety of

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...

. The most popularly selected was the

Walter Venus Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...

, but examples also left the factory powered by

Cirrus III The ADC Cirrus is a series of British aero engines manufactured using surplus Renault parts by the Aircraft Disposal Company (ADC) in the 1920s. The engines were air-cooled, four-cylinder inline types. They were widely used for private and li ...

de Havilland Gipsy The de Havilland Gipsy is a British air-cooled four-cylinder in-line aircraft engine designed by Frank Halford in 1927 to replace the ADC Cirrus in the de Havilland DH.60 Moth light biplane. Initially developed as an upright 5 litre (3 ...

, Colombo S.63,

Walter Mars I The Walter Mars I was a nine-cylinder, air-cooled, radial engine for aircraft use built in Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s. Design and development The Mars I was the largest capacity design of a series of three similar radial engines develop ...

, and Isotta-Fraschini 80 T engines.

Operational history

Breda Ba.15s took part in several competitions. Among others, in August 1930 Col. Sacchi won the race ''Giro Aereo d'Italia'' flying Breda Ba.15S (altogether 10 Bredas took part in this contest). Besides their civil use, some Ba.15s were operated by the '' Regia Aeronautica''. An example is preserved at the '' Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia'' in Milan. One Ba.15 was bought in 1929 by an Italian resident in Paraguay, Nicola Bo. The plane had the Italian civil registration I-AAUG. This plane was later sold to the Paraguayan Military Aviation and used in the Chaco War as a light transport plane with the serial T-8. It was destroyed in an accident in 1933.

Variants

* Ba.15 : Two-seat cabin touring, sporting aircraft. * Ba.15S : Improved version.

Operators

; *

Ethiopian Air Force The Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) () is the air service branch of the Ethiopian National Defence Force. The ETAF is tasked with protecting the national air space, providing support to ground forces, as well as assisting civil operations during nati ...

; *'' Regia Aeronautica'' ; *

Paraguayan Air Arm The Armed forces of Paraguay ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Paraguay) consist of the Paraguayan army, navy (including naval aviation and marine corps) and air force. The constitution of Paraguay establishes the president of Paraguay as the comman ...

Specifications (Ba.15S)

References