Piaggio P.119

The Piaggio P.119 was an Italian experimental fighter of the Second World War, designed in 1939. Its unusual layout put a radial engine in the middle of the fuselage, behind the cockpit, to cut drag and bring the weight close to the centre of gravity, with a shaft running under the cockpit to the three-bladed propeller. Designer Giovanni Casiraghi gave it an all-metal structure with many removable inspection panels, and the armament was grouped in the nose: a 20 mm cannon and four 12.7 mm machine guns. It first flew at the end of 1942, but firing all the weapons caused excessive vibration. Only one prototype was built, and the armistice of September 1943 ended the project.