HISTORY

The plane’s history starts with the Caproni Campini N.1, built in Italy in 1940 as a technology demonstrator. It was powered by a “motorjet”, a type of jet engine in which the compressor is driven by a conventional piston engine.

Sadly, the N.1 had absolutely nothing going for it; it was big & ugly –basically a stovepipe with wings and a cockpit, had the drawbacks of early jet engines (thirsty!) and none of their advantages, i.e. speed and simplicity. It was too slow and cumbersome to be adecent fighter, and so the N.1 never went beyond prototype stage.

But what if Campini had worked on it some more, and achieved a better overall pressure ratio and more thrust? It might have seen service as this (fictional) N.2.

The plane makes (slightly) more sense in an attacker role. The N.1 (apologies –N.2), when tricked out with a couple of Bk 37 pods and rockets, looks properly “scary dieselpunk”.

Would it work? No idea. But there’s a precedent; the infamous “Stuka”, though slow and obsolete, had Allied soldiers shitting their britches every time. If looks could kill, a Caproni Campini with some decent weaponry would do the trick...

FLYING / CONTROLS

There’s nothing to explain, really. VTOL for flaps, trim slider for elevator trim. No special functions or controls on this one. It’s not very realistic, and probably flies a lot better than the real N.1… but then, I only made it for fun.

Have a good one,