Didn't the Italians fly one of those, inside the plane ducts, back
around 1938????   Karibian

You're talking about the Caproni-Stirpa.  Sort of the Edsel of Italian
aircraft.  It actually would fly, but the performance was pretty lame.  A
few years ago people even crazier than us actually built a scaled manned
replica and flew it.  Powered it with an Italian racing motorcycle engine.
It is now retired to a Museum, much to the relief of all.  Whenever I see a
picture of this thing I keep imagining that someone offered a prize for the
design with the least potential for development that would still fly. Other
than that I'm completely neutral.

George W

Any Photo's ?
George ( down under)

Sorry, lining up some graphics for my section on the Stirpa is on my to-do
list for about January.  There are some diagrams and line drawings from some
Italian sources and I believe that NACA did some technical translations in
the 30's.  I think Cal Tech still has indexes for the old TM and TN's.

George W


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