Ansaldo A.300

The Ansaldo A.300 was an Italian general-purpose biplane built by Ansaldo at Turin between 1920 and 1929. Developed from the successful First World War Balilla and SVA scouts, it was a conventional single-engined, two-bay, open cockpit biplane of mixed metal, wood and fabric construction, usually powered by a water-cooled Fiat A.12bis V12 engine. It first flew in 1919 and served as a light bomber, transport, fighter and reconnaissance aircraft and finally as an advanced trainer, with examples in service as late as 1940. The A.300/4, in full production from 1923, became the standard multi-role aircraft of the new Italian air force and was built in about 700 examples, and Poland licence-built fifty more. A four and an eight passenger airliner version also flew.