The Macchi M.16 was a light, single-seat aircraft designed by
Alessandro Tonini
Alessandro Tonini (1885 – 12 November 1932) was an important Italian aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer of the early 20th century who worked for Gabardini, Macchi, and IMAM.
Biography
Tonini was born in Cavarzere in the Province of Ven ...
and produced by
Macchi
Aermacchi was an Italian aircraft manufacturer. Formerly known as Aeronautica Macchi, the company was founded in 1912 by Giulio Macchi at Varese in north-western Lombardy as Nieuport-Macchi, to build Nieuport monoplanes under licence for the Ita ...
in
Italy in 1919.
Design and development
The M.16 was a
single-bay biplane
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 ...
with
unstaggered wings and a largely conventional design except for an unusually deep
fuselage that extended in a bulge below the lower wing. The M.16 was developed in parallel with the
Macchi M.20, a two-seat civil
trainer aircraft which it resembled and with which it shared many common features.
The M.16 proved a successful sporting type, setting an altitude record of 3,770 m (12,370 ft) in 1920 while competing for the ''Coppa Mappelli'' ("Mapelli Cup"), and winning first prize in the competition in 1921.
The
United States Navy purchased three
float-equipped examples for evaluation as communication
floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
s.
Operators
;
*Private users
;
*
United States Navy
Specifications
See also
Notes
References
*
Уголок неба
{{Portal bar, Italy, Companies, Aviation
1910s Italian sport aircraft
M.16
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1919