Three brothers at Linate

In 1934 the brothers Euste, Elio and Luigi Nardi, originally from Venarotta in the Marche, founded an aircraft company in Milan with a workshop at the Enrico Forlanini airport at Linate. Luigi designed their first aircraft, the FN.305, a low-wing monoplane trainer with retractable main wheels. It was first flown in February 1935 by Arturo Ferrarin, the celebrated long-distance pilot, and the Regia Aeronautica liked it at once.

A trainer too popular to build

The problem was scale. The Nardi works were too small, so the main production version was built by Piaggio. Italy ordered 258, Romania built 124 more under licence, and France ordered 300 — only 41 had arrived when Italy declared war on France in June 1940. A long-range FN.305D set a class record flying from Rome to Addis Ababa in March 1939. The improved FN.315 followed, and Nardi opened a branch at Loreto airfield to cope with work.

War, a flying boat and a merger

The war turned Nardi into a repair shop for wood-and-fabric types such as the Fiat CR.42, and German troops stripped its Loreto plant after the 1943 armistice. Reborn as Nardi SA per Costruzioni Aeronautiche, it designed one last aircraft, the FN.333 Riviera amphibian of 1952, eventually built in small numbers by SIAI-Marchetti. In 1971 the company merged into Breda Nardi Costruzioni Aeronautiche.

Továrny

• Linate works · Enrico Forlanini airport, Milan
• Loreto branch · Loreto airfield, Marche — Occupied by German troops 1943–1944

Lidé

• Luigi Nardi · co-founder, designer — Designed the FN.305
• Arturo Ferrarin · test pilot — Flew the FN.305 prototype in 1935

Rekordy a prvenství

• Rome to Addis Ababa, 4,463.8 km at an average 240 km/h, class record by an FN.305D, March 1939