Instruments panel and flight controls inside the cockpit of an Italian three-engine transport plane Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 “Marsupiale” (Marsupial). Clearly visible control wheels, rudder pedals, hand throttles, compass, instruments “clock-type” and many other devices in good part today disappeared. An old-time flying perhaps “romantic”, but extremely demanding for the pilot. Now, with glass cockpit, FBW, HOTAS, GPS, computer, etcetera, the matter is most easy and the pilot’s workload is changed and notably reduced. The price? The pilot is losing the “physical” contact with his airplane and somebody, at flight safety organization level, beginning to worry… Victor Sierra

Old-time cockpit

This all-black SM.82 “Marsupiale” (Marsupial) is likely one of this type transport planes employed by the Italian Regia Aeronautica for long range night missions as those against Gibraltar and Alexandria. All white insignias and markings are cancelled with black matt paint. Also the under wing nationality’s emblem (three Fasci Littori) is black over a dark grey background. Clearly visible on top of the fuselage the Caproni-Lanciani turret, traverse 360 degrees, with a 12.7mm (.50 in) Scotti machine gun, while the under-nose bombardier’s turret is retract. Victor Sierra



All-black S.82 “Marsupiale”

Loading bombs inside the ventral bay and servicing of a Breda 88 likely of the Regia Aeronauticas’s 19th Gruppo Autonomo Combattimento (19th Autonomous Combat Group) at Alghero-Fertilia, Sardinia, June 1940, for one of two raids over the Corsica attempted with this unsuccessful airplane. The photo highlight the contrast between the thin fuselage’s section of the aircraft, sign of the descent from a plane designed only for speed records and with other engine’s type, and the massive cowlings of the Piaggio radial engines. Note also the MG’s emplacement on the nose. All in all a plane’s shape which left puzzled in particular if compared with the well balanced and harmonized shape of other successful aircrafts of comparable category as the Bf 110. Victor Sierra