Savoia-Marchetti S.72

The Savoia-Marchetti S.72 was an Italian three-engine transport monoplane, an enlarged and strengthened version of the earlier S.71. It was a high-wing cantilever monoplane with a fixed tailwheel undercarriage, designed as a heavy bomber, and the prototype first flew in 1934 powered by three 410 kilowatt Alfa Romeo licence-built Bristol Pegasus radial engines. The Regia Aeronautica showed no interest in it as a bomber, so the prototype served as a VIP transport. After a demonstration in China in 1935 it was handed to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as a gift, and the Chinese ordered six more, which were assembled in China. It is presumed that all of them were destroyed in Japanese air raids in 1937.