Retired In Kalifornia's Aeronautica Macchi C.201 & C.200bis Model Builds

[RetiredInKalifornia]

The Aeronautica Macchi (Aermacchi) C.201 & later C.200bis & prototypes were both marginal performance improvements over the 1937-vintage C.200 Saetta (Arrow, Dart, Lightning depending on spoken vernacular) radial engine-powered interceptor fighter just one each having been built & flown.

Responding to a January 5, 1938 Regia Aeronautica Italiana request for a C.200 replacement Aermacchi proposed the C.201 with revised fuselage, Isotta Fraschini Astro A.140 RC.40 licensed variant of the 858 hp two-row 14-cylinder French Gnome-Rhone Mistral Major GR.14Krs radial engine later changed to the much more powerful 1,010 hp two row 18-cylinder FIAT A.76 R.C.40 radial. Two prototypes were ordered first one flying August 10, 1940 with the far less powerful 858 hp two-row 14-cylinder FIAT A.74 radial. Although Aermacchi estimated a top speed of 550 km/h (340 mph) the prototype was cancelled after FIAT abandoned the troublesome A.76 engine.

Converted from a production Società Italiana Ernesto Breda C.200 the C.200bis featured a 1,180 hp two row 18-cylinder a Piaggio P.XIX R.C.45 radial engine with enlarged “barrel” cowling & propeller. First flown on April 11, 1942 at Milano-Bresso by Luigi Acerbi top speed in trials was 535 km/h (332 mph), long since eclipsed by more advanced aircraft (i.e. V-inverted 12-cylinder liquid-cooled Daimler-Benz 605-powered FIAT G.55, Macchi C.205V & Reggiane 2005) it did not enter into production.

Both released in 2014 as full model assembly kits, not parts conversions, the 1/72nd Scale resin Czech LF Models Kit No.72102 Macchi C.201 & KORA Models Kit NO.72191 C.200bis currently are the only ones available in any scale of these largely forgotten WWII Italian aircraft prototype one-offs. Mail-order purchasing one each that year they were amongst the best-molded & detailed of any resin scale model airplane kits I’d ever came across. Utter delights building one must wonder why no injected plastic scale model company has ever bothered to produce & market them preferably as double-kits or even better with a production C.200 for modeling the complete line of flown Saetta production aircraft & variants!

‎Photos Taken January ‎29, ‎2019



















































‎Photos Taken ‎February ‎8, ‎2019

[Vincent Fiore]

Great job on both aircraft.

[RetiredInKalifornia]

Great job on both aircraft.

...They were delights to build thanks to excellent castings. If the mentioned powerplants were available before Italy entered WWII the Saetta certainly would had been competative against the Hawker Hurricane MK I & Spitfire Mk I with de Havilland or Rotol constant speed props, Hurricane MK IIB & Trop versions, serious though not insurmountable difficulties against the Spitfire Mk II or Curtis Tomahawks Mk I & outclassed by the Spitfire Mk V & Trop versions.

[MDriskill]

Thanks for posting, those are excellent! Never seen these prototypes as models, as far as I can recall.

It is indeed interesting to wonder how production versions of these might have fared in combat.

[RetiredInKalifornia]

Thanks for posting, those are excellent! Never seen these prototypes as models, as far as I can recall.

It is indeed interesting to wonder how production versions of these might have fared in combat.

All 1/72nd scale model kit versions of the Saetta well as C.202,205,207 line I'd built, no kit to date of the C.206 alas! The C.200bis might had been an effective interceptor fighter for the 1940 Italian North African Campaign against Hurricanes & Gladiators, against Spitfires that's another matter altogether!