Italian Whirlwind; The IMAM Ro.57
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2023
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Seriously Ed, I've been interested in militaria since I was a boy, and yet you find these aircraft I've never heard of. Not obscure marks or one off experimentals, but genuine production types. Keep it up. Thanks for the content.
Back in the 80s I had a magazine collection - NOT what you think :-) called "Aeroplane". The last pages always covered one specific nation. This one was in there. Funny that I remember this but forget my own phone number and bank account ... One has to have priorities.
For all its dubious value, the magazine covered some very strange aircraft, albeit not nessecarily too detailed nor too correct. Long live the internet !
Like you I've been interested in aircraft since I was a boy. I have heard of many of these aircraft but usually in an A6 size book which had a line drawing of the aircraft on one page and some brief information on the other page, usually covering dimensions, speed armament and weapon load. But apart from that much of what Ed covers is as new to me as it is to you.
@@ottovonbismarck2443 My favorite aviation magazine back in the 1970s called "Air International". It too covered some lesser known types, and had superb x-ray and cutaway drawings. I miss it.
@@bigblue6917 Ed is totally annoying, because I NEVER find anything to correct or criticize 🙂.
This makes him a YT unicum; even "skilled" historians are usually good for one or two mistakes.
It’s hard to find info on these aircraft. I only heard about them because I have 2 books that basically have every military aircraft ever produced. And even these books basically have the info that these aircraft exist aaannnddd that’s it
Ro.57 was definitely an eye catching design but very underpowered. Great vid Ed. Thank you.
Several factors can enter into the power rating. Displacement. Radials tend to be big and somewhat lazy. How much growth potential did the engine type have. How good was the Supercharger? All military aircraft engines of WW2 were supercharged (yes even Allison's). How much boost can the supercharger put out and how much can the engine take? Fuel quality. Higher octane fuel allows higher compression ratios. Largely thru higher boost.
Great looking aircraft, to be fair. The Ed Nash proverb: If it looks right, it might be, but equally might not be.
looks a bit like a two engined hurricane from side view.
I thought so ! …. I was looking to see if anyone else commented this before I did.
Great video, I'm going to love this line of Heavy fighter videos. ...
Body of a single engine fighter but with the wings and engines of heavy fighter, I've never seen that concept before, looks interesting.
There are photographs of a P-40 with twin engines. Was Curtiss serious? I don't know. Twin engined prop driven heavy fighters IMO was kind of a stupid idea. Adaptations of fast twin engined bombers or attack aircraft acting as interceptors/night fighters is something else. After all just how many twin engined fighters were successful as fighters.
Reasons not to build them.
1) Cost. Probably the most expensive thing on the aircraft is the engines. You've doubled that cost right off the bat.
2) Manhours. The most important thing a nation at war can ill afford to waste is the lives of its servicemen. Second is the time. A twin is going to cost more in man hours in construction time. If a single engine type can do the same job. Build that.
Reasons to build them.
1) Armament. A twin engined aircraft offers the possibility of heavier firepower. And not just in the guns. More ammunition capacity. A good example might be the Whirlwind. It had its problems. Cost, manhours (1) and engine availability. But if it had been in service in the late summer and early autumn of 1940 German bomber (and crew killed, wounded or POW) losses would have been much higher. 4 20mm cannon versus 8 .303 machine guns.
2) The ability to carry airborne radar and the operator. Early radar sets were not exactly compact. Let the pilot do the flying and gunnery. Let the operator find the target and direct the pilot to it.
But as engines got more powerful as the war progressed the rational for a twin faded.
1) The Whirlwind besides being powered by the Perigrine was also supposed to be more complex to build. Not so much systems wise but the airframe and wings. Somewhere there has to be chart on man hours to build in terms of the airframe its self for the various types. Turns out there is information out there. Just a quick dive gave BF-109-F 6k hours. Early P-51 10.5k down to 2.5k hours for later production. D model most likely. FW-190. Around 10.5k. Japanese figures tend to be high also. Spitfire. I saw one figure at 15k. Likely it came down during the war. Part of the process of reducing manhours lies in ease of construction. Look at the F-6-F Hellcat. Aside from the engine cowling and the base of the vertical stabilizer there are few if any compound curves. Ease of production starts early. On the drafting boards.
That really is one fine looking aircraft. Reminds me a little of my favourite plane of all, the Grumman F7F Tigercat, which, of course, was much more fortunate when it came to engines...
Just imagine if DB 600s or similar variant engines had been available, could have made a whole lot of difference.
That last picture shows DB 601 's fitted .
YEah, they might have made a single seat Me-110....
Nazis built plethora of twin engine fighters. Waisting material and manpower.
IMAM Ro. 58 was built but only as a single prototype
Sort of looks like a Hawker Hurricane with the engines on the wings?!🤣
I was about to say that!
Great minds think alike!😅@@alanguest1979
You just wonder if Hawker came up to an alternative to the Whirlwind...@@toqtoq3361
Damn ..... well; might as well delete my comment then. A bit silly to place an identical comment.
Same here
Take the valve covers of the nacelles and you'd swear Hawker made a twin engined Hurricane.
You beat me to it!
Essato!
@@iancurtis1152
It's gorgeous! 😁👍
Thanks Ed! I like this idea of going through a region/type of related aircraft in a sweep like this. It puts us all in the 'mood'.
I've been an aircraft nut since i was a kid and make models, of which this one would make a great model, but I've never come across this beauty . Great find mate! 👍
The Breda SAFAT was different from other heavy machine guns in that it fired explosive rounds. The synchronized variant mounted on basically all italian single engine fighters had a poor rate of fire but with the Ro.57 this wouldn't have been an issue as no synchronizing gear was needed.
Love the new Italian series! Can't wait for the next one!
A Very cool looking plane. Thanks for this little gem.
Keep up the Italian aircraft! Love the obscure Italian aircraft. The CANT series next?
It's interesting to note that the Italians were invested in counter rotating engines on their twin engine aircraft. At least on the RO.57 and the BA.88. Highly unusual for aircraft of the period.
Strange how a country with such a strong automotive and engineering tradition seemed incapable of producing a dcent 1500 hp engine.
but Mario the pasta....
Specially considering they were involved in the Schneider Trophy, with the massive engines developed for that, and from which Rolls Royce developed the Merlin.
They could build the prototype/racing engines, but not the production versions with the required reliability at high power. Maybe due to industry being underfunded and under resourced, Italy just wasn't a rich enough country to play in the big league?
Yes, they could build race engines, and they didn't Always work in fact being sometimes definetly unreliable, but politics turned ti producing licence built engines. Fiat weee p&w replicas, Alfa Romeo were Bristol,I think, and Piaggio were Gnome Rhone id I'm not wrong
But plus this, they had great difficulties in having good metal alloys for mass production. This was the reason for their incapability to develop a decente engine exceeding 1000 hp.
Mr Nash, why don't you try tò prepare a video on Piaggio P108? There again engines were what sunk the aircraft in first instance
@@Bruno-zg4cx
Ooh...is that really the issue ?? Poor metal ?
I have wondered about why on earth they couldn't build a decent engine...
-After all they had more than enough industrial experience, didn't they ?
-Cheers from Iceland 🇮🇸
0:20 You just know Ed hurt himself trying to pronounce that name.
Years ago I built a 1/48 model kit from Special Hobby, and the one thing that keeps haunting me is that landing gear. It amazes me how not all of them broke their u/c struts on landing.
I didn't know the dive bomber version had the Breda-SAFAT's swapped out for MG151's, though.
Keep the Italian content coming please 🙏
This is great! Forgotten Aircrafts! Thank you so much!
Look at the propellers. They both rotate inward at the top. That makes either engine less critical during single engine flight
I know it wasn't a success, but it is without a doubt one of the most visually attractive aircraft of World War II.
It could have been the "Italian Tigercat".
Wow It"s the italian moment now!
Speaking of your pronunciation of the IMAM acronym, 😅, It seems as hard as when you dealt with finish names. 😂😇
As for its Legacy at the end of the video, wow, this was unknown to me too. Looking forward to seeing it
The ALFA car company was in financial difficulties in 1915 and was bailed out by Nicolo Romeo. As part of the deal the company was renamed Alfa Romeo.
Right, but... "Nicola". He was an engineer and wealthy industrialist.
Gorgeous plane for sure. And yet a another one scuppered by the engines.
How many military aircraft in WW2 were done in by engines that either arrived to late, failed to pan out or had their development abandoned. The US fighter proposals using Hyper engines come to mind.
@@mpetersen6 Too many to count.
@@cancermcaids7688
Witnessed the by the licensed production of various designs by foreign governments. Primarily radials from Curtiss, Pratt & Whitney, Bristol and Armstrong it seems. Although the Russians did build an awful lot of inline V-12s. Primarily based on licensed built Hisso's iirc. They also bought licenses for the Curtiss D-12 and Conqueror if my source is correct. The Conqueror in US service was done in by the USAAC technical branch insisting on a 300°F/149°C operating temperature.
Looks like a Hurricane having it's Merlin replaced with a nose cone and two radials slapped onto the wings
[[edit]
looks like this comment already was made 35 minutes earlier
Thank you for another informative video about an aircraft I did not know about. Keep up the good work!
Light shone on yet another rare bird,thanks for all your work on these obscure aircraft,it is fascinating learning about the "also rans"of aviation history 😊
Oh Italy.
Always having some interesting -- even good - ideas... and then never delivering on them in a timely manner.
What a gem of a nation they were back then.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
a great very interesting video and lovely plane Mr.Ed as always.Have a good one.
*What a beautiful plane!*
Seems to me , I'm listening to Professor Higgins from " My Fair Lady " !
By the way , first time I saw this beautiful acft. on a Williams Green booklet , I was fascinated !
My Father was astonished with the SAI . " Dardo "
This was circa 1966/67.
Cheers Gentlemen !
Very good-looking plane, really! Would win an elegance contest between his "peers" from Westland and Grumman hands down!
Thanks for another discovery 🙂
I will agree the Grumman was ugly. The Whirlwind however has an elegant simplicity in its lines. But ugly doesn't count. Performance does.
Looks wonderful, Italian flair, all show and no go.
Ed's right about it looking the part. It looks so beautiful, yet lethal. So I assumed right away it was underpowered. It looked like it had great potential, otherwise
Thank you.
not gonna lie your attempt at pronouncing IMANs full name had me in stitches! 😂 especially your cough before hand.
certainly a 'bugger me!' moment
Great vid, Ed...👍
Gorgeous bird! Looks a bit like a Hurricane if you replaced the Merlin with two radials. Too bad we didn’t get to see more of it.
Though it has radial engines, it otherwise generally resembles a number of twin engine racing planes of the mid 1930's including the de Havilland DH.88 Comet (the *other* de Havilland Comet), the Caudron C.640 Typhon and Grigorovich E-2
Looks a bite like the British Comat racer of the late thirties.
When I first glanced at the thumbnail I thought someone had made a twin engined hurricane , that would have been an interesting if bizarre what if 🤔🙂
Beautiful lines
From the cockpit backwards there are definately shades of Hurricane with the spine on top of the main body and slightly boxy side profile
0:19 I like to imagine Ed having to prepare by putting up a 🤌
Please, that is a quite un-polite gesture and only Anglosaxons think it is "typical" Italian. Don't use it in a conversation with an Italian.
The Ro-57 looks remarkably like a twin-engined Hawker Hurricane... to me at least.
Anyone else feel that way?
Wow this plane is as a Lamborghini...Italian design is as their women . Just gorgeous
I never understood why, while for every other engine of WWII is given the EMERGENCY output, for the Fiat A.74 is always given the MAXIMUM CONTINUOUS output.
The EMERGENCY output of the Fiat A.74 was 960 HP, and it could keep it for a pretty long time, half an hour (while, IE, the DB601 could keep the emergency power for five minutes).
This one looks much more F7F than the Lynx (Lince)
IT looks like a two engined hurricane.
With inline engines could be a exceptionally beautiful airplane.
Speaking of "what if aircraft" of Regia Aeronautica I also suggest the Caproni Ca 331. That was even more good looking than the Ba88 or Imam ro. 37 and showed interesting performance, but once again... engines and political choices...😅
Ad for a truly forgotten italian aircraft I suggest the series of Savoia Marchetti Sm91/Sm92/Sm93, that is how you can evolve an aircraft starting from a P38 inspiration.
Now that does look like a tail sitting Tigercat.
Interesting, it looks like it has counter-rotating propellers. Was that common for Italian aircraft?
Such a beauty of an aeroplane!
Classic obscure aircraft video.
Ed: *I see you....*
It's a real looker ! 😘
🎼Ro, Ro, Ro the Plane...
What a classy design. It looks like a race plane or executive transport. Classy, however, doesn't win you any wars.
Looks a lot like a twin engine hawker hurricane.
Looks like two engined Hurricane :)
Ed, I truly appreciate your great work... but to understand the full name of the IMAM, I had to "back translate" it from your "Italian" to Italian. ;-)
I've always loved the look of that plane since I saw a photo back in the 1960s. Now if only they could have wangled a deal for some BMW 801 engines ........
Could Italy have asked Focke Wulf if they could license build their FW 187 and its engines?
Maybe it could, but you have to remember that the country at the time was under a fascist regime. "Autarchia" (self reliance) was the guiding factor, and what brought the country to enter the war while still flying wooden airboats, because you could build someone else's metal design, but you still needed to have the naval yards in Trieste some state contracts.
Italy had better engines than the Jumo 210.
A beautiful plane, 6 heavy machine guns in the nose would have made it quite potent in ground attack or bomber patrol.
Aaargh! DB605! 380+ clean?
What was the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever?
Looks like someone refitted a DH88 with radials.
Cockpit does remind me of the Hurricane
Didn’t the spiteful have a tubular space frame fuselage?
Well, it looks like a goer.
It looks like a twin engined Hawker Hurricane...
Don't have this one, lost 3-4 times auction for Ro.57
Quite similar evolution to Petliakov VI-100 / Pe-2 / Pe-3
Looks like a Hurricane with twin engines…well, that’s what I see.
Looks like a twin-engined Hurricane.
Better engines with four nose mounted cannons and this could have been Italy's Beaufighter.
hhh one almost feels sorry for the poor thing...
Ah yes the only Italian plane i dont have in War thunder😢
It good to understand that the reason why the Regia Aereonautica was fitted with underpowered engines was because of the incredibly foolish decision in the early thirties stop research on in-line engines which Isotta Fraschini, Fiat and Alfa-Romeo which they all had experience but little to do with radial engines because someone decided that it was cheaper. The result was that they had to licence production on the god awful Gnome-Rhône engines and much more reliable Bristol Pegasus. Despite modifications because of low quality fuel and alloys they never received the power they needed until too late. It was only with the license production of the DB 601 and far too late the DB 605.
There was also the Regia Aeronautica conception to use "small engines for fighters" instead of "powerful engines for fighters" (the RAF almost made the same mistake with the Peregrine). The Piaggio P.XII was available in 1939, but was considered a "bomber's engine".
The P.XII and P.XV had the same diameter of a Bristol Centaurus. So, If a Sea Fury could do 740km/h with 2480hp, it could do at least 645km/h with a P.XV and 625km/h with a P.XII. Not bad for 1943 and 1941 respectively.
@@neutronalchemist3241 very true but what afflicted the general staff was their relatively little little knowledge about technical matters, always bickering among themselves and often refusing to communicate with each other. Nothing new here unfortunately...
I've always loved Italian aircraft design in WW2. But it always came down to poor power plants.
Looks like a twin engine Hurricane.
Looks like a twin engine Hurricane...
Did this aircraft have Opposite Pitch Powerplants?
Looks like it.
2:10 MB.5 would like to have a word with you on steel and aluminum skin....
The Italians seem to have been at a huge disadvantage in terms of engine output. Their most powerful production engine of the war after was a DB-600 series built under license. Now just what rational reason the Italian government had declaring war on Britian, France plus later the US is another matter. The funny thing is, if the Italians or Germans had know just what was sitting under Lybia l suspect they would have put a lot more effort into the North African campaign.
No. The most powerful Italian production engine of the war had been the Piaggio P. XV, rated at 1700 hp. That was a 97 octane fuel burning version of the Piaggio P.XII, that was rated at 1500 hp with 87 octane fuel, that was still more powerful than the licence produced DB 605.
When comparing Allied and Axis engines, you have to mind that the Allies had high octane fuel available, up to 100/130 octane (that stand for "100 octane fuel that performs like 130 octane"). That way it was easy to enhance the power just changing the settings of the compressor. IE, no RR Merlin version ever obtained more than 1100 hp on 87 octane fuel.
Axis had 97 octane fuel at best, and not much of it. So, if they wanted more power, they had to manufacture new and bigger engines, that required new and bigger fuselages.
All the Italian fighters looked fast but the Italian engines were never up to the task. In the case of the Ro. 57 I suspect it also had handling issues. A lifetime of building models, including "free flight" models that must be stable, the 57 just doesn't look stable. Big nacelles up front, too short a tail, high aspect ratio wings... it has all the right ingredients to be a pilot killer. The successor, I haven't watched the video yet but I've seen pictures, had a notably longer tail.
Cheers!
Oops! Obviously I meant the "IMAM. 57". I had a couple cocktails.
Must have been an Italian thing but Ferrari carried in with metal skinned steel tube chassis well after others had gone full monocoque in Formula One.
Nah! Ferrari almost never was particularly innovative. Enzo was a great team manager (see how he handled the pre-war winning Alfa Romeo), an above average racing driver (in his youth) but a mediocre and, above all, uber-traditionalist technician. When British F1 makers (Cooper, Lotus, etc.) introduced small, light, nimble, less-powerful rear-engined cars, he reportedly said "You don't put your cart in front of the oxen"... and soldiered on with big, powerful, and basically losing front-engined cars.
Enzo's thinking was that a (fast/racing)car was basically a great engine with some bits around it to carry it along. Besides, he didn't care at all about his production/street cars, which were just a way to finance his racers. That's why old production Ferrari always had great engines but comparably poor brakes and suspension.
AKA monocoque is concerned, it definitely is NOT an Italian "thing"... as the FIRST monocoque car WAS Italian: the wonderful Lancia Lambda of the early Twenties (so much for "F1 innovation").
Perhaps, if rightly developed, it could've been an useful asset for R.A., it could've been used as an heavy escort for the torpedo bombers that tried to stop RN's convoys for Malta. Given how awful were the early fighters of FAA, I imagine that , with better engines, it would've been more than a match against Fulmars.
Italian industry sadly, neverthless regime's propaganda, wasn't able to build powerful engines for their aircrafts, and had to rely on Germany's DBs, build on licence.
P.s. another strange thing about italian fighters was the total lack of a "bubble" canopy, rather, they were issued very late with totally enclosed canopies, look to Mc200 & Fiat G50, with their obsolete open canopy!
Hmmm.... even with the DB license built engines, production capacity was suboptimal to really make a difference.
@@whtalt92 You 're right, on a book about Mc202 I read that the production reached not more than 40 engines monthly for this fighter, Italy 's industry simply wasn't capable to handle a modern war, they lacked pratically everything, from fuel to aluminium and so on, plus the lack of qualified workforce.
Poor Italy, no luck.....the boston red sox of the worlds nations
You'd think a country so obsessed with speed would have put more effort into developing more powerful engines.
:)
Colonnello, the Americans are bombing all of our Ro.57s into rubble!
Make sure they don't miss any, Luigi.
Does anybody know what the bumps around the cowling are for
The engine was tightly-cowled. The bumps gave room for the rocker covers. Fairly common on radial-engined planes of the period.
Eh ...
I'm not sure but it seems to me that the thing with Italy was that it was just behind the major players - and just couldn't ever manage to catch up. They tried - but what they came up with - was equal to something like the LAST generation of what the Big Boys were making - not - their current products.
If Germany had been able to be the Arsenal of Fascism the way the US was the Arsenal of Democracy - THEN - they might have been able to help the Italians out the way the US helped out it's allies - where they needed the help. But - the Germans couldn't even fully equip their own armed forces - much less fuel them - so that wasn't going to happen.
What Germany, Italy and Japan *_SHOULD_* have done - was NOT go to war with their neighbors ...
.
Algorithm
Italian designs were frankly crippled by the lack of engine power. Some designs (example Veltro), only prospered when a German engine (Diamler-Benz) was fitted.
Italy just didn't have the industrial capacity to participate in a modern war. Nothing they did would have really worked unless they somehow begged the Germans to allow them to build a BMW or Daimler-Benz engine factory
Ok, that (maybe) fixes the engine plants.
You still need the raw materials, personnel, training and logistics to do the other mass-manufacture bits.
Another missed opportunity