Piaggio

Piaggio Aerospace, formerly Piaggio Aero Industries S.p.A., is a multinational aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Genoa, Italy. Its origins date back to the former Rinaldo Piaggio S.p.A. company, founded in Genoa in 1884 and originally outfitting ocean liners and manufacturing rolling stock for the developing railway infrastructure at the turn of the century. In the 1920s Piaggio Aero brought on Giovanni Pegna and Giuseppe Gabrielli, two aeronautical engineers, to help develop Piaggio's aeronautic line. Together they created modern technical solutions for aviation. Starting in the 1930s the Italian aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio was working on the design and construction of helicopters for Piaggio.

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P.149 | P-180

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Piaggio P.149

The Piaggio P.149 is a 1950s Italian utility and liaison aircraft designed and built by Piaggio. It was developed as a four-seat touring variant of the earlier P.148. The P.149 is an all-metal, low-wing cantilever monoplane with a retractable tricycle landing gear with room for four or five occupants. The prototype first flew on 19 June 1953.
Only a few were sold, until the German Air Force selected the aircraft for a training and utility role. Piaggio delivered 72 aircraft to Germany (serials between 250 and 325), and another 190 were built under licence in Germany by Focke-Wulf as the FWP.149D (serials 001 to 190).

Piaggio P.149D, registration D-EEGD, built ????, serial number 315
Vliegbasis Volkel (UDE/EHVK), Uden, Netherlands, 13 June 2018

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P.149 | P-180

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Piaggio P-180 Avanti

The Piaggio P-180 Avanti is an executive transport aircraft with twin turboprop engines mounted in pusher configuration. It seats up to nine people in a pressurized cabin, and may be flown by one or two pilots. The design is of three-surface configuration, having both a small forward wing and a conventional tailplane as well as its main wing, with the main wing spars passing behind the passenger cabin area.
A 1980s wave of new-generation planes, developed to appeal to Fortune 500 clients, included Piaggio's Avanti and Beech Aircraft Corp.'s very similar Starship. Engineering studies for the airplane that would eventually be named Avanti began in 1979 and designs were tested in wind tunnels in Italy and the United States in 1980 and 1981, conducted by Professor Jan Roskam from the University of Kansas (using Wichita State University's wind tunnel and Boeing's transonic wind tunnel in Seattle) along with Professor Gerald Gregorek at Ohio State University (using OSU's 2D pressure wind tunnel).
Piaggio's chief engineer, Alessandro Mazzoni, filed in 1982 to patent the Avanti design. Beginning in 1983, Gates Learjet partnered with Piaggio to develop a fuselage for the new aircraft (referred to as Gates Piaggio GP-180). Learjet's design influence can be seen in the steeply raked windshield and the two large ventral delta fins under the tail. At high angles of attack these delta fins provide a nose-down pitching moment and help to avoid a potential stall, and they increase stability in flight by damping yaw and Dutch roll.

Piaggio P-180 Avanti, registration LX-JFP, built 2008, serial number 1176
Cointrin (GVA), Geneva, Switzerland, 25 July 2015

Piaggio P-180 Avanti, registration D-INKY, built 2008, serial number 1162
Cointrin (GVA), Geneva, Switzerland, 14 July 2016

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P.149 | P-180

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