The instrument panel of a bomber Savoia Marchetti S.79 show some distinctive features of the Italian planes of this time as the undercarriage’s brakes commanded by the lever on the left wheel control (instead of the pedals). Note also, over the central console, the three power levers. Unlike the other belligerent’s aircraft, the Italian airplanes, as the French aircraft, had the “inverted” throttles: back lever for plus power (“manetta in tasca”/throttle in the pocket=full power according the Italian aviator’s slang), forward lever for reduce power. This features gave some problems when the Italian pilots flew, during the Co-belligerence, with the English and American planes. The famous torpedo aircraft’s pilot Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia, for example, dead very probable because a mistake with the power lever of the Baltimore on take-off. The “inverted” throttles disappeared after the war with the arrival of the new English and American aircraft (as the Spit IX and the P-51D and P-47D) and definitely during the jet era. Victor Sierra

“Inverted” throttles

The Italian glider Lombarda AL.12P. Besides a crew of 2 it could transport 12 troops. First test flight on the 16 September 1942. Never entered operational service.

Lombarda AL.12P glider

One of the five Stukas Junkers Ju 87D (Dora) former 121st Gruppo Tuffatori (Dive Dombers Group), until late Autumn 1943 based at Chilivani, Sardinia, shifted to the co-belligerent Italian Air Force. The plane, photographed at Lecce, Apulia, late 1944, is the Ju 87D-31 military registration MM 100410, on-strength to NVST-Nucleo Volo Servizio Tecnico (Flight Unit Technical Service), note the code NVST-1 on the fin, based at Lecce’s Galatina airfield, acting inside the 21st Gruppo of the 51st Stormo. The plane is without the dive brakes, bomb rack and MG dorsal, but under the tail is visible the towing attachment for aerial target. In effect the Doras of the 121st Gruppo was employed, after the removal of the armament, for aerial target’s towing on behalf of the Americans, but on March 1944 two or three was transferred in Apulia. According few sources from the Apulia’s bases the Italian Doras flew two mission against the Germans over the Balkans with the loss of an airplane. But is a controversial history without official statements. After the hostilities end the Italian Stukas still survivors was scrapped. Victor Sierra