The Fiat G.55 Centauro (Italian: "Centaur") was a single-engine single-seat World War II fighter aircraft used by the Regia Aeronautica and the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana in 1943–1945. It was designed and built in Turin by Fiat. The Fiat G.55 was arguably the best type produced in Italy during World War II, (a subjective claim also frequently made for the Macchi C.205 Veltro as well as for the Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario) but it did not enter production until 1943, when, after comparative tests against the Messerschmitt Bf 109G and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the Luftwaffe itself regarded the Fiat G.55 as "the best Axis fighter". During its short operational service, mostly under the Repubblica Sociale Italiana insignia, after the 8 September 1943 armistice, this powerful, robust and fast aircraft proved itself to be an excellent interceptor at high altitude. In 1944, over Northern Italy, the Centauro clashed with British Supermarine Spitfire, P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-38 Lightning, proving to be no easy adversary. Italian fighter pilots liked their Centauro but by the time the war ended, fewer than 300 had been built. By comparison, the Germans produced 35,000 Bf 109s. By 1939, all the main Italian aircraft factories had begun designing a new series of monoplane fighter aircraft, using inline engines as opposed to the radial engines that powered the first generation Italian monoplane fighters used in the early years of World War II (fighters such as the Fiat G.50 and the Macchi C.200). This process saw the first generation radial-engined fighters re-equipped with the Italian-built copy of the Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine, the so-called Serie 1/2, whose most prominent representative was the Macchi C.202 Folgore (which was an aerodynamically revised Macchi C.200- also known as Macchi C.201 - with an inline V-12 instead of a radial engine). Aircraft in this series were given alphanumeric designations ending in the number "2". However, the process didn't stop, and already in 1941, designers shifted their attention on the new, larger and more powerful Fiat RA.1050, a license-built copy of the Daimler-Benz DB 605. Aircraft powered by this new engine became the "Serie 5", and all had alphanumeric designations ending in the number "5" (Macchi C.205, Reggiane Re.2005, Fiat G.55). Fiat designer Giuseppe Gabrielli, while experimenting a new version of his Fiat G.50 fighter, equipped with the DB 601, started a new design that was to be powered by the DB 605. The first G.55 prototype flew on 30 April 1942, piloted by commander Valentino Cus, immediately showing its good performance and flight characteristics. It was armed with one 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon with 200 rounds of ammunition, installed in the forward fuselage and firing between the cylinder banks, exiting through the propeller hub. In "Sottoserie O" airframes, there were also four 12.7 mm (.5 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns; two in the upper engine cowling, and two in the lower cowling, firing through the propeller arc, with 300 rpg. This layout soon proved to be troublesome, both for rearming and for the servicing of the lower cowling mounted machine guns: for this reason, the two lower machine guns were removed, and replaced with a 20 mm MG 151/20 in each wing, in the later production series, the Serie 1 (for a total of three cannon and two 12.7mm machine guns, although this varied; some had machine guns in the wings instead of cannon). For further details, including operational history, further development and variants, click here.
