The CANT 25 was an Italian shipboard single-seat

sesquiplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

fighter that entered service with the ''

Regia Aeronautica The Italian Royal Air Force (''Regia Aeronautica Italiana'') was the name of the air force of the Kingdom of Italy. It was established as a service independent of the Royal Italian Army from 1923 until 1946. In 1946, the monarchy was abolis ...

'' (Italian Royal Air Force) in 1931.

Design and development

The CANT 25 was developed from the earlier

CANT 18 The CANT 18 was a flying boat trainer developed in Italy in the 1920s to prepare pilots for flying boat airliners. A development of the CANT 7, it incorporated various aerodynamic and hydrodynamic refinements. While remaining broadly similar i ...

flying boat to meet a requirement for a flying boat fighter for the ''Regia Aeronautica''. The aircraft was of wooden construction and was armed with two fixed, forward-firing 7.7-millimeter (0.303-inch)

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

s.Green and Swanborough, p. 106. It was built in two versions, the CANT 25M with removable wings and the CANT 25AR which was strengthened for

catapult A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored p ...

launching and had

folding wing A folding wing is a wing configuration design feature of aircraft to save space and is typical of carrier-based aircraft that operate from the limited deck space of aircraft carriers. The folding allows the aircraft to occupy less space in a c ...

s. The CANT 25M appeared first, in 1931. It had Warren truss-type interplane bracing and a 306-

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

(410-

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

)

Fiat A.20 The Fiat A.20 was an Italian aero-engine of the 1920s. It was a water-cooled V12 engine that was used by early versions of the Fiat CR.20 fighter and the Macchi M.41 seaplane. In 1923, FIAT built the A.15, a 430 hp (320 kW) water-co ...

12-cylinder water-cooled engine mounted to drive a two-bladed pusher

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

, and was used for

trials aboard warships of the ''

Regia Marina The ''Regia Marina'' (; ) was the navy of the Kingdom of Italy (''Regno d'Italia'') from 1861 to 1946. In 1946, with the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946, birth of the Italian Republic (''Repubblica Italiana''), the ''Regia Marina'' ch ...

'' (Italian Royal Navy). It was replaced by the CANT 25AR—AR stood for ''Ali Ripiegabili'',

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

for "Folding Wings"—which instead had vertical interplane bracing struts to allow the outer panels of the wings to fold to the rear. It also had strengthened

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...

bracing and a more powerful engine, a 328-kilowatt (440-horsepower) version of the Fiat A.20.

Variants

;CANT 25M :Initial version with detachable wings ;CANT 25AR :Later version strengthened for catapult launching and with folding wings

Operators

; *''

Specifications (25AR)

Notes

References