An Italian bomber CRDA Cant-Z-1007bis “Alcione” registered GC-10 at snowcapped Forlì airfield during a schoolchildren’s visit likely in Winter 1931-1942. The letters GC mean Gruppo Complementare (Complementary Group) in this case 10th Gruppo Complementare. The Gruppi Complementari (Complementary Groups) were established inside some operational units for ancillaries activities as training of the flight crew to aircraft of the Squadriglie them assigned, recurrent training of pilots not committed in war operations, in some case also towing target, etc. Often the GC’s number is the same of the Gruppo or Squadriglia inside of them was established. Victor Sierra

Gruppo Complementare

One of the two autogyro Cierva C.8L Mk III built in Great Britain by Avro and purchased in 1929 by the Italian Air Force for practice around the rotary wing. The aircraft is photographed perhaps at Littorio airfield, Rome. After some years of interruption, also following the test of the first Corradino D’Ascanio’s helicopters, the interest for the autogyro was resumed and on 1935 the Regia Aeronautica purchased two Cierva C.30, equally British-made, registered MM320 and MM321 (the latter, construction number 753, former British civil registration G-ACXA). The MM320 was provisionally switched to Italian Navy for test on board the war ship with unsatisfactory results, while the MM321 was employed for a series of tests at Guidonia and Venegono in the years immediately before the outbreak of the war and later re-registered MM30030. On May 1942 was dismissed from the military line and sold to gliding’s pioneer Vittorio Bonomi and registered as civil aircraft, I-CIER. Survived to the war the I-CIER is today exhibited in the Science and Technology Museum at Milan. In any case the Cierva C.30’s story in Italy is few known and controversial because according some sources the C.30 purchased was in reality only one, the MM30030 later I-CIER. Victor Sierra

First practice with the autogyro

This detail of a Breda 65 ground attack airplane of the Regia Aeronautica’s 50th Stormo Assalto, notice the unit’s insignia over the engine cowling, show well the two machine guns which, apart the Scotti’s MG, was almost the standard Italian aircraft’s armament during the WW2 both in fixed (in the wings or synchronized with the propeller on the nose) and flexible installations (turret): Breda-SAFAT caliber 7.7 mm (0.303 in), in foreground, and Breda-SAFAT caliber 12.7 mm (0.500 in), in background, well recognizable for the different length of the barrel: 64 cm (25 in) for the 7.7 mm (total length 109 cm/43 in), 80 cm (31 in) for the 12.7 mm (total length 139 cm/55 in). Based on the M1919 Browning machine gun, and developed upon a Regia Aeronautica’s requirement half Thirties by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda of Milan which absorbed the Società Anonima Fabbrica Armi Torino (SAFAT), a former division of FIAT Group, the two Italian MG were chambered to fire indigenous ammunition with 7.7 mm (0.303 in) and 12.7 mm (0.500 in) caliber, predominantly ball, tracer for the 7.7mm, including high-explosive-incendiary-tracer (HEIT) (filled with 0.8 grams of PETN), or armour-piercing (AP) for the 12.7mm. In particular the 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT was a belt fed, short recoil operated weapon, essentially an Italian modified Browning M1921 mechanism, but shorter and slightly less heavy than the US machine gun, which was mounted experimentally first in the FIAT CR.30 fighter biplane and introduced in large scale in the his successor, the CR.32 fighter. During the use in the war both the MG proved itself well-constructed, sturdy and extremely reliable weapons rarely jammed in action. Other characteristics: weight 7.7 mm 12.5 kg (28 lb), 12.7 mm 29 kg (64 lb); rate of fire 7.7mm 800–900 rounds/min, 12.7 mm 700 rounds/min (575 rounds/min synchronized); muzzle velocity 7.7 mm 730 meter per second (2,400 ft/s), 12.7 mm 765 meter per second (2,510 ft/s); feed system belt-fed; cooling, air. The MG, especially the 12.7 mm, was also produced and employed as ground weapon in particular for AA defence. Victor Sierra