In 1938, the Italian company S**oia-Marchetti began to develop SMThe 88 fighter-bomber, originally intended for export, attracted attention after the prototype was unveiled in 1939, and was evaluated as an advanced fighter of the new concept in Italy, which seemed to have a promising future, but it did not usher in mass production, but derived from it SM91 and sm92 two fighters, of which SMThe 92 is a twin fighter.
sm.The 88 is a twin-engine, double-arm fighter with a wooden structure and metal skin, and the middle fuselage can accommodate three crew members, namely the chief and co-pilot and the tail gunner, and the aircraft is equipped with two Bredda-SAFAT 12 on the wings7 mm machine gun with another self-defense machine gun of the same model mounted in a flexible plastic case in the tail of the body. The aircraft has a 600-kilogram bomb loading capacity, and the main pilot acts as a bombardier to aim when the bomb is dropped, and the co-pilot completely takes over the pilot.
sm.The 88 is powered by two German-made Daimler-Benz DB 601 V12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, which are also the power of many famous models such as the BF 10988 The maximum flight speed is 560 kilometers per hour, and the maximum ceiling is 8700 meters. sm.The performance of the 88 was not bad in the armament of the Italian Air Force at that time, but due to the outbreak of World War II, the German side could not supply the engine, which became SMOne of the obstacles to the mass production of the 88 was that the company flew only one prototype in 1941.
By 1942, the Royal Italian Air Force demanded that the SMThe 88 was redesigned as a long-range rapid reconnaissance aircraft or bomber, requiring a maximum range of 2000 km with the use of auxiliary fuel tanks and a maximum range of 500 km with 1500 kg of aerial bombs, sm92 is one of the two proposals proposed by the company, and it can be called the Italian version of the "double demon".
sm.The 92 canceled the middle fuselage in favor of a tandem double cockpit mounted on the left fuselage with the pilot in the front and the tail gunner in the rear, with a total length of 137 meters, wingspan 185 meters, 415 meters. The aircraft uses two Daimler-Benz DB 605 engines as power, with a maximum output of 1,455 horsepower each, driving a three-bladed constant-speed propeller, with a maximum flight speed of 615 kilometers at an altitude of 6,700 meters, a cruising speed of about 540 kilometers per hour, a maximum ceiling of 12,000 meters, and a maximum range of 2,000 kilometers.
The aircraft had great firepower, 2 MG 151 20 mm guns were installed on the middle wing, another one on the right fuselage, and 2 Breda 12 were also installed under each engine compartment7 mm machine gun, with a streamlined small compartment on the horizontal tail in the tail section, it had a backward remote-controlled firing Breda machine gun, operated by the tail gunner. sm.The 92 also has a strong bomb loading capacity, with up to 2,000 kg of bombs under the middle wing and 160 kg of bombs under the outer wing.
S**oia-Marchetti built a prototype, which made its first flight in October 1943, and its performance was not bad, but it had a very complex structure that was not conducive to production, and in a flight in March 1944, the aircraft was attacked by the mistake of being an Allied P-38, and although it survived but was badly damaged, it was destroyed in an air raid after being grounded for a few months.