The Marchetti MVT, later renamed SIAI S.50, was an Italian
fighter of 1919 and the early 1920s.
Design and development
Alessandro Marchetti (1884–1966) designed the MVT (for "Marchetti-Vickers-Terni"), a single-seat, all-metal
biplane with its
fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...
suspended between the upper and lower wings. The after part of the fuselage itself was flattened to serve as an
airfoil. The semi-elliptical
wing
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is e ...
s were extremely thin in section and employed
wing warping
Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite direc ...
to allow lateral control, and the aircraft had all-moving tail surfaces.
[Green and Swanborough, p. 527.] The MVT was powered by an SPA 6a water-cooled engine rated at 164
kilowatts (220
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 t ...
) driving a two-bladed
propeller, and was armed with two fixed, forward-firing 7.7
millimeter
330px, Different lengths as in respect to the electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the metre and its derived scales. The microwave is between 1 meter to 1 millimeter.
The millimetre (American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, ...
(0.303-
inch)
Vickers machine gun
The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a 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 men to move and o ...
s synchronized to fire through the propeller.
[Green and Swanborough, p. 362.]
Vickers-Terni
OTO Melara was a subsidiary of the Italian company Finmeccanica, today Leonardo, active in the defence sector, with factories in Brescia and La Spezia. The Mod 56 pack howitzer, in service throughout the world, and the 76mm naval gun, adop ...
at
La Spezia constructed the MVT, which first flew in 1919. On 9 December 1919, it reached a maximum speed of 250
kilometer
The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...
s per hour (155 miles per hour), an unofficial world speed record which was denied official status because no representatives of the ''
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale''—the world governing body for aeronautics—were present to certify the speed.
In 1920, Marchetti redesigned the MVT, giving it wings of longer span and splayed interplane bracing struts, a new
cabane structure, and a more powerful engine, the SPA 62a rated at 234 kilowatts (285 horsepower). In this redesigned form, the MVT underwent testing at
Guidonia Montecelio
Guidonia Montecelio (), commonly known as Guidonia, is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio, central Italy.
Geography
The municipality of Guidonia Montecelio, formed by the main towns of Guidonia and Montecelio, l ...
, where it achieved a speed of 275 kilometers per hour (171 miles per hour).
Marchetti joined the
SIAI firm in 1922 as its chief designer, and at that time the MVT was renamed the SIAI S.50. Although the S.50 did not meet the specifications the ''
Regia Aeronautica'' (Italian Royal Air Force) had established for entrants in the 1923 single-seat fighter contest—which specified that entrants be powered by the 224-kilowatt (300-horsepower)
Hispano-Suiza HS 42 eight-cylinder water-cooled engine
[Green and Swanborough, pp. 526-527.]—SIAI entered it anyway. It met a favorable enough reception for the ''Regia Aeronautica'' to acquire three aircraft for evaluation and make plans to order 12 aircraft, although in the end the 12 were never ordered or constructed.
Experience with S.50 in the 1923 contest led Alessandro Marchetti to design and construct a derivative of the S.50, the
SIAI S.52 fighter.
Variants
One of the ''Regia Aeronautica''s three S.50s was modified into a twin-float
floatplane.
Operators
;
*
Corpo Aeronautico Militare
The Italian Corpo Aeronautico Militare (Military Aviation Corps) was formed as part of the Regio Esercito (Royal Army) on 7 January 1915, incorporating the Aviators Flights Battalion (airplanes), the Specialists Battalion (airships) and the Ballo ...
*''
Regia Aeronautica''
Specifications (MVT with SPA 6a engine[Green and Swanborough claim that the specifications are for the SPA 62a-powered version, but this appears to be in error; the maximum speed they cite matches the speed they report for the SPA 6a-powered version, not the speed they report for the SPA 62a-powered version.])
Notes:
*Time to 1,000 m (3,281 ft): 2 min
*Time to 5,000 m (16,405 ft): 11 min
See also
Notes
References
*Green, William, and Gordon Swanborough. ''The Complete Book of Fighters: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Every Fighter Aircraft Built and Flown''. New York: SMITHMARK Publishers, 1994. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marchetti Mvt
MVT
1910s Italian fighter aircraft
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1919