Originally posted by ra
Caproni-Campini CC-2.
Well Done:
In 1939 Ing Secondo Campini had managed to persuade Caproni, one of Italy's most renowned aircraft constructors, to build a prototype aircraft to test his idea of jet propulsion. An ordinary piston engine was used to drive a three-stage variable pitch fan, which blew air out of a variable propelling nozzle at the rear of a jet-pipe. In this jet pipe, fuel could be burned to increase thrust. The idea was logical but uninspired, and the CC.2 (or N.1 as it was officially known) was a big lumbering machine which barely managed to leave the ground when it was first flown on 28 August 1940. The test authorities at Guidonia, the great Italian research establishment, did not try to conceal their ridicule - this aircraft was regarded more as a diversion than a serious attempt at jet powered flight. Outwardly the aircraft looked like a jet powered aeroplane and thus gained much world wide press coverage.
