On this day in aviation history: In 1956, the Fiat G.91 achieves its first flight. Although involved in the same Cold War, the US and the European nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had significantly different aviation needs in their standoff with the Soviet Union. Whereas the US was searching for supersonic fighters and interceptors, the European nations were seeking out light attack fighters and short-range, lightweight bombers. When NATO Supreme Command released a specification for a light strike fighter, designer Giuseppe Gabrielli of Fiat took on the task of creating a small, lightweight fighter that was easy to maintain but expendable if lost to enemy emplacements. While the competition was fierce and included both modified existing aircraft (like an export version of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter) and new designs from several manufacturers (more on those in later posts), the G.91 came in second place behind a Breguet submission in the first selection round. But Fiat built its prototypes over half a year faster than its competitors, which allowed for refinements in subsequent prototypes and a nearly production-ready aircraft by the time the final competition was held. The Fiat won hands down, but political issues among the NATO powers limited deployment to the German and Italian air forces. Portugal later bought aircraft from Germany, and the G.91 ended up in their air force as well. The US purchased four aircraft, two each for the US Air Force and US Army, for evaluation purposes as did Greece. Many static and flying examples still exist.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:00:01 +0000
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