Piaggio P.50

The Piaggio P.50 was an Italian prototype heavy bomber designed and built by Piaggio for the Regia Aeronautica, and the first Piaggio design by Giovanni Casiraghi, working from an outline by Giovanni Pegna. The P.50-I was a four-engine shoulder-wing monoplane with a single large fin, powered by four Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI V12 engines in tandem pairs, two pushing and two pulling, and with three gun positions including a nose turret. Two were built, the first flying in 1937 and the second damaged landing at Malpensa in 1938. The P.50-II of 1938 had four Piaggio P.XI radials, each a tractor, and five 12.7 mm machine guns. No production order followed, but the experience fed directly into the later Piaggio P.108.