Searching in stories... |
Timeline |
Options
|
|
||
|
||
|
||
Show the latest entries |
||
Searching in stories... |
Timeline |
Cori, June 16, 1884 - Sesto Calende, December 5, 1966
His father, Vincenzo was an engineer and his mother Giulia Canevari, daughter of the engineer Raffaele Canevari, designer and builder of some of the most significant infrastructure works of post-unitary Italy. Marchetti's interests were channelled into a course of study functional to his interests and, after high school and classical studies, he graduated in engineering at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1908.
In 1909 he was present at Wilbur Wright's demonstrations at the Rome-Centocelle airport, where the newly created Aviators Club had organized demonstration flights in which the King himself had participated. The event further stimulated the passion of the designer and, finally, in May 1911, having persuaded his father to finance the project, he completed the construction of his first "Chimera" aircraft in Spruce, driven by a partially aluminium built 30 HP engine and, therefore, particularly light.
Marchetti, therefore, began his activity as a designer at the Vickers-Terni of La Spezia, through the construction of the Marchetti MVT (Marchetti-Vickers-Terni) fully metallic fighter which in the two-year period 1918-19 was awarded various speed records for land planes reaching the speed of 278 km/h, 50 km/h beyond the records of the very fast SVA of the flight over Vienna and of the French SPAs themselves.
1921 was a turning point in the business, in fact, thanks to the financial support of his father, he signed an agreement to take over the control of SIAI (company Idrovolanti Alta Italia) Savoia, which since then updated its company name to SIAI-Marchetti and then in Savoia Marchetti (SM)
At that time the engineer Marchetti, designer of open and innovative ideas, devoted himself to the design and patenting of a two-rotor, coaxial, four-blade, counter-rotating rotor, with a diameter of 17 meters, which found the firm opposition of members of the Royal Navy originating fervent disputes that ended with a duel challenge (later recomposed) launched towards the Superior Director of the Engineer and Aeronautical Construction. A further patent more specifically concerned "an eccentric reaction propeller due to periodically dissymmetric incidence and variable between the blades", that is what is currently meant by "cyclic step" and which, starting from 1939 (about 20 years after the Marchetti patent) has allowed the spread of the helicopter today.
From 1922 the production of avant-garde aviation models began which soon acquired worldwide fame, such as the A16 with which Francesco de Pinedo flew for 370 hours flying over three continents covering 55,000 km from Sesto Calende, headquarters of the SM (Savoia Marchetti) in Melbourne, Tokyo and finally Rome. There were more than 60 aircraft designed by him, mostly in a large series, including the Savoia-Marchetti SM79, SM81, SM82 and SM84, used during the Second World War, but also the twin-engine seaplane Savoia-Marchetti S.55 X, with which it was possible to carry out the Atlantic flights of Italo Balbo, thanks to an ace 750 engine. Particularly thanks also to the innovative design of Marchetti and the significant production organization of the Savoia Marchetti, which in those years occupied over 5,000 employees, Italy in the 1930s was a leader and avant-garde also with respect to the French, American and German aeronautical industrial apparatus and holder of numerous world records of speed, distance and take-off speed. At the same time the reliability of the planes was represented by the enormous success, as well as by the public, of the technological cruises and intercontinental flights, represented by the efficient return to the bases of the formations of dozens of aircraft in the various continents.
In addition to the innovative use of light metals, starting from the MVT of 1917, Marchetti, as captain of industry operating in the world market, aware of the strategic nature of supplies and continuity in production, was a specialist in the use of non-strategic materials, that is, those materials that Italy could obtain without resorting to external imports such as in the case of metals. Its aircraft were designed with a wise use of plywood and woods of various types coupled according to the characteristics of elasticity or rigidity that were desired. The use of metal structures was strictly relegated to structural purposes only and never intensive. Only in the latest S.M. gradually all-metal constructions, as in the SM.133 and SM.10X, projects never completed.
The engineer Alessandro Marchetti rests in Cori, in the Caucci Molara chapel.
— — — = = — — —
You choosed to show only the famous things! (Via the Options menu)