The Forgotten Largest Floatplane of All Time - CANT Z.511
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- Опубликовано: 29 июл 2024
- With a streamlined, smooth aesthetic, classic Italian lines and excellent performance - it's hard to understand why the CANT Z.511, which already holds such the accolade to its name of being the largest floatplane of all time - has been largely forgotten. Today we take a dive into its history, and the reason why its name is scarcely mentioned in aviation circles today.
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Sources:
Civoli M., Aereoplani: Regia Aeronautica-Aeronautica Militare 1923-2003 (2002)
Thompson, Jonathan (1963). Italian Civil & Military Aircraft 1930-1945. New York: Aero Publishers Inc.
John & Elke Weale, Combat Aircraft of World War Two, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1978.
0:00 - 1:51 Introduction
1:52 - 4:36 Construction
4:37 - 11:42 Flight Testing and Career
11:43 - 13:13 Conclusion 
Кино
![An Often Forgotten Oddity That Served The US Navy | Grumman J2F Duck [Aircraft Overview #40]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7bMOM4OICWs/mqdefault.jpg)
![An Often Forgotten Oddity That Served The US Navy | Grumman J2F Duck [Aircraft Overview #40]](/img/tr.png)
![The Plane That Cut Off Your Arm If You Wanted To Land | CANT Z.501 Gabbiano [Aircraft Overview #65]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uQHhwjq9aOM/mqdefault.jpg)
Sorry for the microphone quality on this one, am on holiday and forgot my high quality one!
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@dinoconc With Keynote, I know it's not really designed for that but it's the best I have
I actually am italian, and i am lucky to have been a rower in to Monfalcone's port, exactly were the videos are taken from . I always knew about the story of these beasts : in the lagoon outside of the Port there are multiple structures today called "caregoni" because of their resemblance to big chairs, old peaple often tell us that that they were test moorings for these seaplanes. Another interesting thing Is that in my rowing club there Is a giant catamaran called "corsara" that Is propelled by 12 rowers , It was built in 1947 out of some scrapped seaplanes pontoons. I always wondered out of wich seaplane those pontoons came.
Also, amazing video.
FWIW we in American, when speaking of large aircraft, measure fuel in pounds, not gallons.
Filippo Zappata, the engineer, is my ancestor!
I have a lot of original drawings at home made by him!
Oh wow, that's incredible! Anything you'd like to share, I'd be really interested to see them at aviationdeepdive@gmail.com
Alternatively, we'd love to have you on our server! discord.gg/WCevgcufwJ
What a beautiful thing....say what you like about the Italians, but their planes looked gorgeous.
Well…….some of them did and some not so much! Lol
So are their women but they are a lot smaller!
The Italians make everything gorgeous including their women
@@armoredsaint6639Like some comments
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re-😂.
The Italians Were Left Behind In Technology And Tactics During World War Two
You did a fabulous job on researching this unusual airplane. It truly is a beautiful machine, and deserve to be remembered.
Definitely, it's quite surprising how little this plane is really talked about!
What a beautiful aircraft from the golden age of flight, such a shame that it never had a real chance to spread its wings. Thank you for this presentation.
Glad you enjoyed it
Thank you. This floatplane was built in CRDA shipyard of my town; Monfalcone.
Ma i cantieri CANT non erano a Trieste?
@@hyperboy990CANT aveva sede a Monfalcone, che al tempo era provincia di Trieste
The decade 1925-1935 started with wire braced, fabric covered biplanes with fixed landing gear and open cockpits. This decade ended with metal stressed skin monocoque, cantilever monoplanes with retractable landing gear and fully enclosed cockpits. Amazing advances. Arguably made possible by increases in engine horsepower from about 180 to 900 hp.
I first saw this in an aerospace periodical from the 80's in a beautiful watercolor representation.
It also had the last known sad picture of it burning on a lake after a late war raid.
Wonderful informative video, on a beautiful, unique plane.
Oh wow - I couldn’t a picture like that anywhere! If you know what magazines it was, or if you by any chance have it please let me know
@aviationdeepdive it was the German language Aero magazin I saw it in, but I just checked the copyrights, it seems to only be a translation of an English language periodical as the copyrights go to
Marshall Cavendish Ltd. 1983 and Aerospace Publishing Ltd. 1982.
They had a lot watercolor illustrations, which I'm sure come out of one artist studio, that have also been used in war plane picture encyclopaedias since the late 60's early 70's.
@@marcusott2973 Interesting, I'll have to take a look, I try to compile as much info and photos as possible as this one of my favourite aircraft.
This plane is just ridiculously beautiful, almost as if they’d gone for streamlining and designed it from the outside in. Not unlike their big-3 fighters: Macchi Folgore, Fiat G55, and Reggiane Sagittario. It seems unlikely they received inspiration from Fairey or Blackburn. There really must be something the the adage “function follows form”. Could also have been a world-beater in early civil aviation had it been refitted with retractable undercarriage. It might have been the Italian Constellation. 👍🏻
I agree in every aspect. This airplane is definition of elegance, it looks like balerine dancing on stage.
Edit: and fighters serie 5(and c.202) were like majestic war steeds.
Really well put. My own thoughts entirely. It's like something out of a Fred Astaire film- can picture him and Ginger flying down to Rio on it!
Sheesh. As many of these aircraft vids as I've watched, I never knew about this particular aircraft. And it's one of the most beautiful, wonderful lines and balance, amazing performance, very ambitious project.
I just saw a DC3 with floats on. The Italians certainly have more style than anyone else.
You've lost 2 more engines.
That's more like a DC4 with floats.
Wow, just when I thought I had seen every aircraft built at that time here comes another one I knew nothing about. Thank you for this brief interesting story.
This probably would have made a pretty good long range land based airliner. Probably would have added 30 mph to its speed, increased its payload and range. Could possibly have given the DC4 and constellation a run for its money.
Yea,, I'll bet it could of.
It really was a beautiful looking plane. Italians sure can design things.
A beautiful and futuristic design to say the least!🤺
Great channel and video, I’ll just point out that the R-2600 is a 14 cylinder engine, not 18.
I’m only a stickler about this because it’s the engine we have in our TBM Avenger we fly around to air shows and such. VERY familiar with it. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t lol!
Ah you're totally right, don't know how that slipped through.
That's awesome, you fly TBM Avengers to this day?
@@aviationdeepdive Yup, we are a CAF wing with a few other aircraft, but the Avenger is the one people really care about. 🙈
Our radius is usually ~250 mi tops from our base of ops though. At 70-80gph (130-150 takeoff) plus regular maintenance / volunteer hours, it’s really difficult to get to local shows, much less anything away from the mid Atlantic region of the US. The $$$ just isn’t in it anymore unfortunately.
The Douglas XTB2D-1 Skypirate could carry up to four torpedos but was limited to two for carrier operations. It has a very similar payload capacity to the Z.511.
Wow, what an incredible plane. Great video!
Thankyou!
Another fantastic video. Been a lifelong aviation enthusiast and don’t remember ever seeing this before. Thank you, fantastic channel.
Thankyou so much! Appreciate that
What a great looking aircraft
That's a very handsome thing. Looks like a wide body Focke-Wulf Condor
Wow I am shocked. I've never heard about this aeroplane before. It looks fantastic. Thx for a great video.
Inspiring video! Now I'm adding these planes as an option for the Italy player in our Axis&Allies Global 1940 house rules. I found some 3D printed miniatures of them in 1/900 scale online!
Booyah
The same engineer Filippo Zappata made even an excellent helicopter after the war, the also forgotten Agusta A101G. Some US lobbies pushed the Italian government to produce under license in Italy the Sirkosky SH3D instead of the A101G.
It wasn’t a excellent helicopter it didn’t even go in production. SH3 is far superior.
@@Toyota-ci3nj In 1971 I was 16 years old and I went with my father, who was a pilot, to visit the Agusta helicopter factory in Cascina Costa near Milan. We were guided by a colleague of my father who was a Sirkosky SH3D test pilot; it was on that occasion that we saw a large Agusta 101G helicopter in a corner of a hangar and our guide told us that it was an excellent helicopter that never went into production despite its potential.
thanks for the great clip! the footage was great!
Realy good video, i love your content. A questions, do you have plans to talk about specific aircraft in the future? If so please talk about the Swedish shoot down DC-3/The Catalina affair, it is a realy unknown story but very interesting.
I definitely do like covering specific aircraft, I'll look into this incident! If you have any further info feel free to email it to me at aviationdeepdive@gmail.com
Well presented, interesting documentary on a promising aircraft most people would never know.
Thanks!
CANT built the most technically advanced aircraft in Italy during the 1930's - 1940's. Zappata was a genius in the italian aeronautical industry but due to shortage of raw materials they didn’t have the capacity for mass production.
what a beautiful aircraft … it truly is … It‘s a shame that everything about this airplane was lost … I wonder if there are still some blueprints … somewhere … in some archives
I'm sure there is more to be found. When I'm next in Italy I might do some research, find out the appropriate archives and drop in to see if I can find anything. If I can, I'll likely make a 'deep dive' episode on its history that's a bit more thorough and more like 30-45 mins.
What an awesome test pilot!
Such a beautifull aircraft. Hope someone makes a model !
Thanks for sharing this exquisitely beautiful plane.
Great video, was not indeed aware of this plane 👍
Glad you covered this one .,.very elegant.
I am all around impressed! First time experiencing your channel. I subscribed within minutes. Thank you and best regards.
Thanks so much!
@@aviationdeepdiveyou're welcome!
Regarding the torpedo carrying capacity: There is one design that I'm aware of that has a similar load, equally never made it into full production: The Douglas Skypirate, an experimental torpedo bomber that was designed to serve on what would eventually become the Midway-class
Amazing vid on an even more amazing Aircraft , this plane put the Condor in the shade and if it had went on after the War it would have spat on the Brabizon , an it was only another 77ft longer..an got nowhere ..Good vid again.
Thanks for your fascinating video history of the CANT Z511 Giant Floatplane. Really enjoyed it. Thanks again. Keep them coming. Melbourne.
Thankyou! Will do!
First time I saw this beauty, I thought it was a DC-4! A really beautiful aircraft
I CANT get enough of those sleek lines ...
It's truly one of the most beautiful planes ever! (aaand I just got the dad joke...)
Great content
Fantastic work, sir. Bellisima!
THank You for this really interessting story of this beautiful plane 🙂
Very Impressive! Anyone who thinks that the Italians could never match the other major powers in design and aviation, better rethink. This aircraft was arguably better than even the PBY Catalina and the British Sunderland flying boat. The problem for the Italians appear to have been prioritization. Not only did they not produce it in respectable numbers, they never really used the aircraft in any capacity. Axis strategy prioritized medium bombers over larger, more expensive to produce four engine bombers. The failure was in the short sighted leadership. In sufficient numbers, this aircraft could have even reached the factories producing armaments deep inside the Soviet Union.
Liked and subscribed! Amazing channel! Keep it up!
Thank you! Will do!
What a beautiful aircraft! Excellent video: well researched with a decent script. The sound quality is alright, too BTW. Duly subscribed.
Many thanks!
You're welcome! @@aviationdeepdive
Bellissimo documentario! Grazie!
What a masterpiece ❤
Great! More please! 😊
Beautiful aircraft. That tail is so Italian. It has always puzzled me why Italy didn't have good aviation engines in WW2 considering that their Fiat and Isotta-Fraschini Schneider Cup engines were highly developed. Thank you for the nice video.
I think they were far too complicated and maintenance-intensive to be put into large scale production and used on front-line aircraft
It was because the government decided to swap to radial engine for military use, while the industry focused mainly on linear engine until then. This caused a lot of problem for lack of research and know-how at the time in the country.
My grandpa was a flight engineer in Mariner in WW2 - his crew came together to fly a plane from Hawaii to the forward operating base - after that point they flew recon off Iwo Jima and then Okinawa where they were shot down - my grandpa said you would see a bunch of Japanese zeroes fly overhead… then later a bunch of American fighters would play overhead - eventually the zeroes would stop coming and the rescuers came in
Thank you for this really interesting video! I do know something about aircrafts and engines. However, I never have heard about Radials from Alpha Romeo or Piaggio. The italian streamline design of the CANT looks pretty good, even today. A pity, they scrapped them.
She's a beauty! A Constellation on floats.
Also the aircraft was also planned to be used in an opeartion against the American fleet in new York. Indeed the aircraft was capable of carry 4 Maiale sub platform (the same that sunk the two british bb at Alexandria). The operation gained a lot of interest and it was also planned to appen but the armistice of 1943 destroyed any possibility
why have I only just discovered this channel? Also, thank you for taking the trouble to try to pronounce these foreign names correctly
One of the most beautiful airplane I ever saw, truly a Ferrari of the sky!
Sorry to hear about the copywright controversy, but your films are great! I love inter-war transitional types
Thanks!
Funny, I was looking for this plane on wikipedia 2 weeks ago but couldn't remember it's name.
I've only seen it mentioned in a war aviation documentary. It was in regards to a viable attempts to launch an attack on the us east cost.
Plan was to refule via a Uboat. They mentioned this aircraft was the only viable means to make the plan work.
Add it to the long list of great Italian pre WW2 aircraft forced into a roll it wasn't suited for
Bonjour , merci beaucoup . Bon choix d'avion .
Elegant. Was there to be a wheeled version I wonder.
No mention of that in my sources, but I hope to do to more research
What an astonishing design! Zappata went on to design (and build) the equally impressive BZ 308....
They made big look amazing 👍
I hope your appeal worked!
A beautiful aircraft; I am also enjoying learning about the innovation and quality of the Italian aircraft industry.
Still waiting for news on the appeal - thanks for the comment!
@@aviationdeepdive Have you looked into other platforms like Playeur?
Nice looking aerodynamic fuselage. The wing root looks really thin for that time although the horizontal stabilizer bracing looks like a dated shortcut. Overall it kind of reminds me of the Constellation.
Excellent, thank you for producing for us! Shows yet again human intransigence, a wheeled version would have possibly been a total success, those floats weight and drag.........?????
Interesting idea! Floats are often less draggy than people assume, and weight doesn't have tooo much of an effect on top speed - so a fairly modest speed increase is probably likely. A land-based version would definitely have been cool to see, though it does look awfully good as a floatplane!
I've never understood the failure of the Regia Aeronautica during the war. Perhaps lack of ability to produce aircraft in the quantities required, or being late to the game, but in terms of design, no one can doubt that the G.55, C.205 and Re.2005 were fine aircraft. BTW, I recommend a video on the IAR 80. It was quite an effort by the Romanians.
Definitely a good idea, I'll put it on the list!
I think it was a combination of ack of numbers, experience, effective tactics, and ability to adapt that caused their failure.
Like literally everyone else, they would have been VERY competitive had the war, as it was by 1941, started in 1935.
Much like Japan, they valued maneuverability over everything else until they were overtaken by the opposition, and by the time advanced second generation were available there weren't the experienced pilots or the fuel available to make the most of them
@@AndreiTupolevThat and the fact that Italian industrial capacity was tiny compared with Germany, France and Britain.
The weak point of the Italian industry has always been the low availability of raw materials in the country. The failure of the Regia Aeronautica is due to the wrong choices of Mussolini, who in the mid-1930s spent enormous resources in the colonial war to invade Ethiopia and in the Spanish Civil War. Finally he entered the war on Hitler's side without having the necessary resources to make a war that lasted much longer than a few months as hoped.
Thanks for covering this interesting aircraft. I guess a flying boat was out of the question for some reason. Pherhaps the envisioned an eventual land plane only verstion in the future.
..the old adage, "If it looks good, It flies good" certainly was true of this plane....
Best looking Italian Plane I've ever seen !!
Would make a Steller R/C model !
Wonder if anybody's made one yet ??
Watched from Old Harbour Jamaica. It was a eautiful aircraft.
Aviation Deep Dive: "It was the largest floatplane of all time!"
Dornier Do-X: "Come on, man."
Hughes H-4 Hercules: "Are we just a joke to you?"
They are flying boats, not floatplanes. Floatplane = primary buoyancy from floats, flying boat = primary buoyancy from hull.
What a beautiful aircraft. Those magnificent men 🛩and their flying machines.!!
Noticed it had a longer range than the Focke Wulf 'Condor', 4352 Km against the Condor's 3560 Kms. It was a bit faster too, but the payload was twice that of the Condor. A specially prepared version of this aircraft could have easily done the eastern Europe to Japan flight. And, a maritime ⚓version operating in the mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian oceans would have been a challenging foe.✈
Such a sleek float plane.
such a great airplan. it is alway very sad that nothing is left from it to watch it in a museum. :(
Would love to get hold of 1/72 Vac Form kit of this.
Bellísimo!
Get the book - "Le navi aeree di Filippo Zappata" by Giorgio Evangelisti......
Unfortunately I don't speak Italian...
Thanks
Most interesting. Forza Italia!
Wow. If they had built that marine patrol version they would probably still be flying today.
The famous P-3 Orion still used for marine duties is just a Lockheed Electra from 1957, the Nimrod that was relatively recently withdrawn for being too expensive to operate was the De-Havilland Comet, The HC-130/PC-130 Hercules fills a similar role and has been flying since 1954, Russia still flies the IL-38 based on the IL-18 from '56.
Theyre being replaced by stuff like the ATR-72, DHC Dash8, and specialised military transports.
Patrol craft are among the oldest craft flying, because the low, slow, long endurance heavy duty airliners of old are far better suited than most modern aircraft, and designing a new aircraft just for a few patrol craft would not make sense when old airliners are near perfect.
Imagine this thing re-engined with the PT6 for efficiency and reliability........ Theres still so many places something like this with its range, payload and rough water capability would be relevant.
Every aircraft designer should be onboard the first test flight of their creation.
If you can fly the thing using engine power differential, and just rudder... that plane works.
(Damn, I always thought this thing was the size of a Condor but its more like the size of a Super Connie, good Lord)
A great plane!
The italians are marvelous Engineers,with a flair for the beautifull,they suffered from being a relatively small nation with a smalish economy to match, but bursting with innovative Engineering talent!
*How much DRAG did those floats create?!! Two engines JUST to counteract that!*
Yeah Idrogigante is a fitting name for this behemoth
The U.S.A.did something similar with the D.C.3 also known as in the military C47. Very interesting. They Remind me of after a two year old walking in there parent's big shoes .
Boy, the nose and windscreen really looks like a Lockheed Connie.
Impressive, when you think that the Douglas DC-4 was a large airliner for the time.
This Z.511 is very comparable to a DC-4 : same length, larger winhspan, larger wing area, similar empty weight, similar gross weight, similar engines.
Beautiful and sleek. Pity it never got its chance to prove itself. And it could have been the heavy bomber the Axis never got.
Another advantage over the Condor would be the ability to be refueled and rearmed at sea from a tender ship or tanker sub.
Thanks for such a good video. On the other han, fate does not exist.
I never said fate existed, I said the fate of the aircraft was unnecessary. In that context 'fate' just means what ended up happening to them.
@@aviationdeepdive OK. Thank you. I will watch your other videos because are good. Well done man.
@@williamenriquesanchezcolme753 Thanks!
The Improved Catalina is Making a comeback and Japan has a variant. The Sea planes have great fore fighting capabilities as long as they have water close to land on. If it worked before upgrade it and put it back to work
The airborn submarine option seems perfect for the Bolivian navy.
Hughes tried to beat it but failed :)
Am i the only one Who thinks this looks like a fw Condor with floats?
No one preserved or in restauration process?
It looks like a Focke-Wult 200 Condor on floats.
The Spruce Goose was the largest float plane ever made. It was designed to carry 150,000 pounds (68,000 kg), 750 fully equipped troops or two 30-ton M4 Sherman tanks.
Spruce Goose is a flying boat, not a floatplane.