VIDEO: A Fiat AS.6 roars to life!

[Editor]

Below a new video of the Fiat AS.6 restored to working condition. This is the powerplant that powered the MC.72 that set a speed record for piston-powered seaplanes that still stands today. This engine developed a maximum of 2,800 horsepower. On 23 October 1934 Francesco Agello piloted the M.C. 72 at an average speed of 709.207 km/h (440.681 mph) over three passes.

The MC.72 is dear to my heart, my father's cousin Antonio Tassone who was Captain of the Falchi Blu Paracadusti Aeronautica Militare and whom I met in Rome many years ago on a business trip, sent me as a kid an AMI Calendar with the front cover of the MC.72 that I always kept - he knew I loved Italian aircraft. The MC.72 was truly a beautiful plane. Anyway, here is the engine startup, enjoy it, its amazing.

[RetiredInKalifornia]

Open block exhaust ports, deafening noise, heavy gas & oil smoke, raw power, Greenie-Weenie double-terrorizer for dang sure! Conjured a what-if Aerosilurante based on that engine near 20 years ago: SAI Ambrosini SS.10 three-crew tricycle gear cunard pusher; two internal torpedos, two foward 20mm nose cannon, two 12.7 mm rear cockpit canopy machine guns as "scares", 400 mph wavetop sprint speed for evading swoop-down fighter attacks, draw port or starboard sideviews from memory perhaps.

[Editor]

Its great the way they keep the memory of these men and machines going. Even just an engine startup draws a crowd. History is important to them as it should be, it paves the way forward.

[RetiredInKalifornia]

Its great the way they keep the memory of these men and machines going. Even just an engine startup draws a crowd. History is important to them as it should be, it paves the way forward.

Sixty-eight years ago now Douglas DC-6s & 7s were in production at Douglas plant in Long Beach, CA near our house in Lakewood this before pumping out DC-8 jets then MacDonnel-Douglas DC-9s. Pre-delivery flight testing aircraft flew clock & counter patterns landing approachwa directly over our house, standing on auto driveway as tot could see up to four lined up for touch & gos on north-south rundway. Big Pratt & Whitney R-2800-CA15, 16, 17 radials on DC-6s backfired on throttle-downs, Wright R-3350-988TC18EA1-2 turbo-compounds on DC-7s didn't some flying low enough to see underside fuselage details & inside landing gear wells. From 1958 on jets used southeast-northwest runway for flight testing over Pacific making landing approaches from southeast in from then low populated Orange County; entire plant west of Lakewood Boulevard long since raized to ground & rebuilt as commerical industrial park.

Up till c.1960 Douglas plant had dozen or so WWiII street level rebar concrete bomb shelters lining Carson Street east-west & more on north-south Lakewood Boulevard, post-war US Army Long Beach Airport Nike Hercules battery complex either side of Runway 30 Southeast west of Clark Avenue north of San Diego Freeway. Around February-March 1963 I'd visited the battery complex with school kids several months after the Cuban Missile Crises, decommissioned later that year probably explains why the Army was OK allowing tours of an active Nike installation by school kids. Neat indeed it was going underground to see half-dozen Nikes lined up well as one brought above ground & raised up for firing, potent sight indeed for this 11 year-old then!

[lb]

represents the heartbeat of Italian aviators !

[Arditi1961]

A nice piece of history comes back to life.

[Editor]

Original film footage of the MC.72 on its record breaking flight, note the engine startup (unfortunately its only a few seconds long) and the familiar sounds and exhaust of the same startup at Il Magnete Workshop. Also note Mario Castoldi among the group that greets Francesco Agello after the flight. Anyway, one of the great planes in aviation history and deservedly so. Enjoy.


And here's an AMI video of the same flight, note the wake as the MC.72 takes off on its record breaking flight: