Savoia-Marchetti SM.91

The Savoia-Marchetti SM.91 was a two-seat, twin-engined Italian heavy fighter prototype, designed to compete in a 1942 revision of the long-range fighter-bomber contract that the Regia Aeronautica had offered in 1938. That original specification had produced the SM.88, on which the SM.91 was largely based, and the request for a long-range fighter ended work on the SM.88. The new aircraft was all-metal and was to be powered by two German DB 605 engines, with three 20 millimetre cannon in the nose and two more in the wings. The prototype, MM.530, first flew on 11 March 1943 and logged 27 hours. The first prototype was captured and sent to Germany in October 1943; the second was tested in July 1944 and destroyed by Allied bombers.