[BGB] Wicked Early Jet Aircraft Department

[Jim Barbaro]

I have recently got my hands on a hard-to-get 
model of the Campini Caproni CC.1.  It was the 
second successful jet (after the Heinkel 178) to 
fly in aviation history.  A very interesting 
project that after it was milked for its 
propaganda value, was forgotten and unsupported. 
Oh, that Mussolini, always thinking!  Below is an 
article from a blog that is an excellent history 
and technical assessment of the aircraft.  The 
part I like is the particular Italian genius for 
finding a way of using cooking oils as a fuel! 
Can you imagine the Germans doing this?

Well, actually, I can:



General von Gußshteppen:  Vell, Herr doktor, how is the project going?
Doktor Schnitzelmacher:  Mein General, today is a 
great day for Aryan engineering.  Our group has 
developed a Jumo turbo jet engine that runs fuels 
refined biergarten waste.
GvG:  You have made a jet fuel from mein brudder-in-law Klaus?
DS:  Nein, mein general!  A fuel made from wurst 
ends, cold sauerkraut und shtale pilsner!
GvG:  Vatt are you saying?  Each of these on 
their own is most dangerous in its by-product 
shtinken!
DS:  Ja, mein general.  Shoost imagine them 
combined in a combustion chamber ignited mit a 
flamen und producing a thrust of 20,000 kilograms!
GvG:  Oy! I mean, Ach!  Das ist vun powerful shtinken!


JPB




http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/caproni-campini-ni-cc2/


Caproni-Campini N.1 (CC.1 & CC.2)

*

	The Caproni-Campini N.1 used an ingenious 
way of propelling itself. The piston engine 
inside the fuselage drove a ducted fan and fuel 
was bled and ignited in the compressed air 
emitted through the tailpipe. With a maximum 
speed of only 375 km/h (233 mph), the N.1 served 
only to prove its propulsion concept was 
possible. The design limitations meant that 
development would be fruitless, and as Italy's 
war effort gained momentum, thoughts turned to 
more immediate problems.
	It is perhaps surprising at first sight 
that, having been the second nation to fly an 
air-breathing jet-propelled airplane, Italy did 
not feature among the leading nations in this 
field of technology. But in truth the 
Caproni-Campini N.1 was no more than an ingenious 
freak which employed a conventional piston engine 
to drive a variable-pitch ducted - fan compressor 
with rudimentary afterburning. As such it did 
nothing to further gas turbine research, and was 
to all intents and purposes a technical dead-end. 
The engineer Secondo Campini had created a 
company in 1931 to pursue research into reaction 
propulsion and in 1939 persuaded Caproni to build 
an aircraft to accommodate the fruits of this 
work, namely the adaptation of an Isotta- 
Fraschini radial engine driving a ducted-fan 
compressor; the compressed air was exhausted 
through a variable-area nozzle in the aircraft's 
extreme tail, and additional fuel could be 
ignited in the tailpipe to increase thrust.
	The real innovation of Caproni Campini 
jet was not in the main engine (a normal piston 
engine) but in the Jet afterburner. A ducted 
propeller worked as an air compressor pumping 
fresh air in a Venturi duct: the injection of 
fuel worked as the first afterburners used on 
F-100 Super Sabre during 1950's. There were not 
annular combustion chambers and the ducted 
propeller was unable to change hydraulically the 
inclination of the blades (pitch). Also the jet 
exhaust had no flux adjustment by changing the 
outer diameter of the outlet, like it happens on 
modern jets. These were the reasons of the too 
long venturi duct crossing the fuselage. Now try 
to imagine, as a never built CC2, a turbo-diesel 
engine moving hydraulically an adjustable pitch 
fan in a short duct having annular combustion 
chamber and a variable geometry outletŠthis never 
to be produced evolution of Caproni Campini could 
fly at low speed with the lowest consumption 
possible of vegetable oil (colza, sesami ect) 
closest as possible to the Allied bomber "boxes" 
and after attacking - by using the afterburner!
	The CC1 solution was totally different 
from both other jet solutions (Axial and 
Centrifugal) because the thermodynamic 
performance of any engine is linked to entropy 
(dQ/dt°C). The higher the temperature in the 
combustion chamber the more the energy really 
useful for weight of fuel burned per second: 
internal combustion engines (piston engines) have 
an internal "flame" temperature varying from 900 
°C to 1400°C in the while jet engines never 
exceed 700°C-750°C.
	But a jet theoretically can exceed the 
speed of the exhausted gases (rule of 
parallelogram of forces plus reaction): an 
afterburner can push out gases with a speed 
largely supersonic. With a sudden injection of 
methyl alcohol into the after burner this CC2 
could have a good chance to reach or pass Mach 1 
during a climbing high Mach strafing attack to 
the allied close bomber box-formations, to be 
repeated till end of alcoholic fuel. Finally this 
strange half-jet would have the possibility to 
reach its own landing-site by mean of the diesel 
engine at "cruise economical" speed and without 
burning a litre of rare petrolŠ This was the real 
final target for the Caproni-Campini project: the 
first supersonic "no-petrol" interceptor. The 
only competitors were the German rocket fighter 
Me-163, Me-263, Ju-248. Stupidly this intrepid 
and successful development program was stopped at 
the very beginning: with the death of Italo Balbo 
the genius of Prof. Campini was forgotten.
	The two-seat low-wing N.1 (sometimes 
referred to as the CC.1) was first flown at 
Taliedo on 28 August 1940 by Mario de Bernadi. A 
number of set-piece demonstration flights was 
undertaken, including one of 270 km (168 miles) 
from Taliedo to Guidoma at an average speed of 
209 km/h (130 mph), but it was clear from the 
outset that use of a three-stage fan compressor 
driven by a piston engine would limit further 
development, and the experiment was abandoned 
early in 1942 when Italy was faced with sterner 
priorities. The only other developer of Campini 
type jet was Japanese Navy, who used this type 
engine on their Ohka 22 kamikaze planes. The N.1 
survives today in the Museo della Scienza 
Technica at Milan as a monument to ingenuity if 
not sophisticated technology.

Specifications

Type: two-seat research aircraft

Powerplant: one 900-hp (671-kW) Isotta-Fraschini 
radial piston engine driving a three-stage 
ducted-fan compressor

Performance: maximum speed 375 km/h (233 mph)

Ceiling: 13,000 feet

Range at cruising speed: 168 miles

Time to climb to 13,000 feet: 53 minutes!

Weights: empty 3640 kg (8,025 lb); maximum takeoff 4195 kg (9,248 lb)

Dimensions: span 15.85m (52 ft 0 in); length 
13,10 m (43 ft 0 in); wing area 36.00m2 (387.51 
sqft)

Armament: none
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