A seaplane company on Lake Maggiore

The company began on 12 August 1915 as SIAI, the Società Idrovolanti Alta Italia, founded in Milan by Domenico Lorenzo Santoni and Luigi Capè to build French FBA flying boats under licence on the shores of Lake Maggiore at Sesto Calende. Under the chief designer Alessandro Marchetti, who arrived in 1922, it became Savoia-Marchetti and produced the S.55 double-hulled flying boat and the SM.79 Sparviero bomber, whose early examples set 26 world records. In 1943–1944, as the monarchy fell from favour under the Salo regime, the royal name Savoia was dropped and the firm became SIAI-Marchetti.

Bankrupt, then rebuilt

By the end of the war Allied bombing had all but destroyed its factories. SIAI-Marchetti tried railway equipment and trucks, and in 1946 even built prototype lightweight motorcycles, among the first to use a rotary-disc-valve two-stroke engine, but none of it saved the business. The SM.102 light twin found only 21 buyers. In September 1951 the company declared bankruptcy and every employee was dismissed, though the liquidator rehired more than half of them to finish outstanding orders. In 1953 SIAI-Marchetti emerged from the process and began rebuilding, this time on helicopters and light aircraft.

Frati’s three-seat fighter

The turning point was a design it bought rather than drew. In the early 1960s Stelio Frati created a small all-metal aerobatic three-seater, first flown on 15 July 1964 by its builder Aviamilano. SIAI-Marchetti bought the rights outright and, as the SF.260, turned it into a trainer that flew like a combat aircraft. Air forces loved it, and the armed SF.260W Warrior gave smaller nations a light ground-attack machine for very little money. Around 900 were built by 2012. In the United States it was sold for a while as the Waco Meteor, although it had nothing to do with Waco.

Helicopters for Agusta, a jet for Singapore

Agusta bought 30 per cent of SIAI-Marchetti in 1968 and 60 per cent in 1973, and the Vergiate works began building Agusta A109 helicopters and licence-built Bell, CH-47 and HH-3F types. The fixed-wing side kept going. The SM.1019, a turboprop rework of the Cessna Bird Dog, won an Italian Army order, and the S.205 family of four-seat light aircraft sold about 740 examples. Then came the S.211, a little turbofan basic trainer begun as a private venture in 1976. It first flew on 10 April 1981 and Singapore ordered ten in 1983. It was the last aircraft SIAI-Marchetti designed.

Folded into Aermacchi

The S.211 sold only about 60 copies, and a bid with Grumman and later Northrop Grumman for the US JPATS trainer competition lost to the Pilatus PC-9 derivative that became the T-6 Texan II. Agusta took full ownership in 1983, and in 1997, as part of Italy’s consolidation of its aircraft industry, SIAI-Marchetti was closed. The factories stayed with Agusta; the SF.260 and S.211 went to Aermacchi. The bloodline lives on: the S.211 grew into the Aermacchi M-345, which entered Italian Air Force service in 2020 and is the new mount of the Frecce Tricolori display team.

Fabrieken

• Sesto Calende works · Sesto Calende, Lake Maggiore, Lombardy — Historic seaplane base; reopened by AgustaWestland in 2006 as a training academy
• Vergiate works · Vergiate, Varese, Lombardy — Built Agusta A109 and licence-built Bell, CH-47 and HH-3F helicopters; retained by Agusta in 1997

Mensen

• Alessandro Marchetti · chief designer from 1922 — Designer of the S.55 and SM.79; his name joined the company’s
• Stelio Frati · designer — Created the SF.260, first flown 1964
• Raffaele Conflenti · first technical director — Developed the early SIAI flying boats
• Francesco de Pinedo · Regia Aeronautica aviator — Flew an SIAI S.16ter from Rome to Australia and Tokyo in 1925

Records en primeurs

• S.55P prototype set 14 world records for speed, altitude and distance with payload in 1926
• SM.79 set 26 world records between 1937 and 1939
• 1946 motorcycle prototypes among the first with a rotary-disc-valve two-stroke engine