The I.Ae. 27 Pulqui I was an Argentine jet designed at the " Instituto Aerotecnico" (AeroTechnical Institute) in 1946. Only one prototype was completed; unsatisfactory performance led to the aircraft being superseded by a later design.

Design and development

The design was created by a team led by the French engineer Émile Dewoitine which included engineers Juan Ignacio San Martín (mil.), Enrique Cardeilhac, Cesare Pallavicino and Norberto L. Morchio. The

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 ...

was semi-

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

with an elliptical cross-section housing a single

Rolls-Royce Derwent The Rolls-Royce RB.37 Derwent is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine, the second Rolls-Royce jet engine to enter production. It was an improved version of the Rolls-Royce Welland, which itself was a renamed version of Fran ...

5 engine with the air intake in the nose and the ducting surrounding the cockpit. The reduced internal fuselage volume forced the fuel tanks to be installed in the wings, which resulted in a significant reduction of its range.

Operational history

The prototype flew on 9 August 1947 with test pilot 1st. Lt. Osvaldo Weiss at the controls. The history of this aircraft was brief, limited to testing and evaluation of the only prototype, as its performance was considered unsatisfactory and in the meantime studies for the more developed FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II were quite advanced. Nevertheless, its role in the history of aviation is quite significant as it was the first jet aircraft developed and built in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. This made Argentina the 6th nation in the world to accomplish this task by itself.

Operators

; *

Argentine Air Force "Argentine Wings" , mascot = , anniversaries = 10 August (anniversary) 1 May (Baptism of fire during the Falklands War) , equipment = 139 aircraft , equipment_label = , battles = * Operation Independence * Operation Soberanía * Falkl ...

Aircraft on display

The restored prototype is currently displayed at the

Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica de Argentina The National Aeronautics Museum "Brigadier Edmundo Civati Bernasconi" ( es, Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica) is an Argentine museum located in the city of Morón, Buenos Aires. Established in 1960, the museum is dedicated to the history of aviati ...

of the Argentine Air Force at

Morón, Buenos Aires Morón () is a city in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires, capital of the Morón ''partido'', located in the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, at . Located 20 km (13 mi) west of Downtown Buenos Aires, Morón is easily reac ...

.Ogden 2008, p. 510.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

"Article on the 50th anniversary of the "Fabrica Militar de Aviones"(in Spanish)- listing all the aircraft developed and manufactured there since 1927.
''Aerospacio'' (Buenos Aires), 1977. * ''Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1951''. London: Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 1951. * Ogden, Bob. ''Aviation Museums and Collections of the Rest of the World''. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 2008. .

External links

*

IAe 27 Pulqui / Flickr
*
"El Pulqui vuelve a sobrevolar la historia" - Article about Pulqui I restoration and history, ''La Nacion'' newspaper, 2001-10-08
(retrieved 2014-05-16)

(en) article about Pulqui I & II, with illustrations. (retrieved 2019-02-24) {{FMA aircraft IAe27 1940s Argentine fighter aircraft Single-engined jet aircraft Low-wing aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of Argentina Aircraft first flown in 1947