Trains, buses and jets

Aerfer was a very Neapolitan mix. Formed on 26 July 1955, it gathered the Campanian aviation industry: the Pomigliano works of the old Officine Ferroviarie Meridionali and IMAM, the Romeo aircraft business that had built the Ro.37 and Ro.43 for the Regia Aeronautica. Its name is a contraction of aeronautical and railway construction, and it lived up to it, building trolleybus bodies for Naples, Mexico City and Istanbul, railcars, buses and truck cabs alongside aircraft.

Faster than sound

In the air, Aerfer took over Sergio Stefanutti’s lightweight fighter line from SAI Ambrosini. The all-metal Sagittario 2, Aerfer’s answer to NATO’s 1953 light strike fighter requirement, first flew on 19 May 1956. On 4 December 1956 Lieutenant Colonel Giovanni Franchini dived one from 13,725 metres to Mach 1.1, making it the first Italian aircraft to fly at supersonic speed. NATO chose the Fiat G.91 instead, and the Air Force evaluated but never ordered it.

Into Aeritalia

The Ariete of 1958 added a small Rolls-Royce Soar booster jet for climb and sprint; two flew, but no orders followed, and a rocket-boosted Leone was abandoned before a prototype was built. Aerfer’s more lasting business set a pattern for Italian aerospace: licence production and subcontract work, including fuselage components for Douglas airliners. In 1969 it merged with Fiat’s aviation division to form Aeritalia. Its railway side meanwhile built railcars for the Ferrovie del Sud Est and the Italian state railways’ ALe 803.

工場

• Pomigliano d’Arco works · Pomigliano d’Arco, Naples — Former OFM aircraft and railway works

人々

• Sergio Stefanutti · chief designer — Led the Sagittario 2 and Ariete designs
• Giovanni Franchini · test pilot, Lieutenant Colonel — First Italian supersonic flight, 1956

記録と初記録

• First Italian aircraft to exceed the speed of sound, 4 December 1956