Piaggio P.2

The Piaggio P.2 was an Italian single-seat fighter prototype built by Piaggio in 1923 around the smallest airframe that could carry a 224 kW Hispano-Suiza HS 42 eight-cylinder water-cooled engine. Giovanni Pegna designed it at the Pegna-Bonmartini workshops in Genoa, and Piaggio finished it after buying the firm that year. It was a very advanced low-wing cantilever monoplane for its time, with a monocoque or semi-monocoque wooden fuselage with plywood skin, fixed landing gear, two radiators and two synchronised machine guns. Two were built and entered in the 1923 Italian fighter contest, but the Air Ministry distrusted monoplanes and the performance fell short of Pegna's predictions, so no production followed. The Regia Aeronautica bought one for evaluation in March 1924.