Macchi C.202 Folgore
Italy's Daimler-Benz DB 601-engined fighter of 1941–43, adapted by Mario Castoldi from the radial-engined C.200 Saeta and judged by the Smithsonian the best fighter the Regia Aeronautica fielded in significant numbers. NASM puts production at about 1,500 built between 1941 and 1943, Macchi itself building fewer than 400 and Breda and S.A.I. Ambrosini the balance. The Folgore fought over Malta and North Africa and, briefly, on the Eastern Front, served on with the Co-Belligerent Air Force after the 1943 armistice, and survives in just two examples.
Why It Mattered
The Folgore showed what Italian design could achieve once it was given a modern inline engine. The National Air and Space Museum calls it the best fighter airplane fielded in significant numbers by the Regia Aeronautica during the Second World War. Smithsonian Magazine reached the same judgement, describing it as the finest fighter of the Regia Aeronautica Italiana. Yet outside Italy it stayed little known, and the magazine notes that it never won the fame enjoyed by fighters of its era in other countries. It was also produced in larger numbers than any other Italian monoplane fighter.
Design Notes
Chief designer Mario Castoldi adapted the airframe of the radial-engined C.200 Saeta to the German Daimler-Benz DB 601 liquid-cooled engine. No indigenous inline powerplant of sufficient power was available when the war started, so early in 1940 Macchi imported the German engine as a private venture. The Folgore first flew in August 1940, and flat out it was almost 97 kph (60 mph) faster than the Saeta. To counter the engine's torque and P-factor, the wings were made unequal in span — 21 cm (8 3/8 in) more on the left than on the right — so that the larger wing's extra lift opposed the swing. Once no DB 601 engines remained available, Alfa Romeo took up licensed production of a copy, the R.A.1000 R.C.41 Monsonie. By 1943, however, the Folgore's standard armament had proved ineffective as other fighters were equipped with powerful guns and cannons.
Operational History
The Folgore was deployed during the summer of 1941 to 1° Stormo C.T. for conversion training. By November its unit had transferred to Libya and engaged British forces shortly before the British blockaded Tobruk. On 29 or 30 September 1941, while Malta was under siege, the type entered service for the first time. The National Air and Space Museum judges that it proved clearly superior to both the Curtiss P-40 and the Hawker Hurricane, and that its pilots outperformed all opponents except Spitfires and P-51 Mustangs. Its combat spanned the deserts of Libya to the outskirts of Stalingrad, although its service against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front was limited. In the final months of 1942, the Regia Aeronautica had more Folgores on strength than any other fighter type it flew. When the Allies landed in Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943, the Folgore remained the principal fighter equipping many Italian squadrons. The Germans operated the C.202 in limited numbers, and after the Italian Armistice it appeared in the small Allied Co-Belligerent Air Force until V-E Day. About twenty Folgores were also flown by Croatia.
Afterlife
After the war, some Folgores were re-engined with the stronger DB 605 and redesignated C.205 Veltros; Egypt's air force, their final operator, was still flying them in 1949. Of the two C.202s that remain in the world, one belongs to the National Air and Space Museum, and the other is displayed at the Italian Air Force museum at Vigna di Valle, painted to represent the personal aircraft of Lt. Giulio Reiner. The Smithsonian's airplane was brought to the United States for evaluation at Wright Field, Ohio, and Freeman Field, Indiana, and remained in storage for years before museum technicians restored it in 1975. Positive identification of its production series is still unknown, so curators selected the arbitrary serial number MM 9476, copying aircraft 90-4 of the 4º Stormo that operated in Libya in the summer of 1942. Recent research by Italian aviation historian Giovanni Massimello argues that the airframe is MM.91981, the Macchi-built aircraft captured at Sciacca in Sicily, but the identification has not been conclusively proven. The Smithsonian's Folgore is currently kept in storage at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.