Piaggio P.32

The Piaggio P.32 was an Italian twin-engine medium bomber of the late 1930s, designed by Giovanni Pegna for the Regia Aeronautica after a contest announced in 1934. It had a wooden structure, a glazed nose, twin tail fins and a banana-shaped fuselage, and used very small wings for its size, fitted with leading edge slats and double flaps to cope with the high wing loading. The prototype flew in 1936 and led to orders for the P.32 I with Isotta Fraschini V-12 engines and the P.32 II with Piaggio radials. Both proved underpowered, with a top speed near 386 km/h, and could not fly on one engine. They went to the XXXVII Gruppo in 1937 and were withdrawn to training in April 1938; the P.32 Bis redesign was cancelled after a fatal crash.