Piero Magni (

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, December 22, 1898 - April 17, 1988) was an Italian aeronautical engineer. He was heavily involved with the

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...

later in his career. Magni contributed to the development of variable incidence and canard wings. His activity has not been limited to the design, becoming also an entrepreneur, establishing a firm initially dealing with the manufacture under license of gliders, and then taking charge of the audit of aircraft for 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 ...

. He designed the Vittoria 1924 sport plane. He succeeded also in manufacturing some designs, and patented a

cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...

to be applied on a

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

that allowed to remarkably increase the aircraft aerodynamics penetration and allowing at the same time an efficient system of temperature regulation of the aircraft itself. This project, known as Anello Magni, has been further developed by the

, becoming known as

NACA cowling The NACA cowling is a type of aerodynamic fairing used to streamline radial engines installed on airplanes. It was developed by Fred Weick of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1927. It was a major advance in aerodynamic ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magni, Pietro 1898 births 1988 deaths Engineers from Genoa History of aviation 20th-century Italian engineers