Caproni CH.1

The Caproni CH.1 was a single-seat biplane fighter, of which a single prototype was produced in Italy in 1935. Antonio Chiodi began design work in 1934 as a private venture of the Caproni company, and the CH stood for Chiodi. He designed it as an aerodynamically clean single-bay biplane of all-metal construction with fabric skin and wings of equal span, spatted landing gear and an enclosed cockpit under a canopy that slid to the rear. Chiodi intended a Gnome-Rhone 14K Mistral Major radial engine, but the aircraft was built with a 417 kilowatt Piaggio Stella P.IX nine-cylinder radial. Chiodi himself flew it on its first flight in May 1935. The Regia Aeronautica placed no production order and no further examples were built. The listed figures are a length of 7.19 metres, a wingspan of 8.6 metres, an empty mass of 1,400 kilograms and a best speed of 377 kilometres per hour at 5,000 metres.