{"id":21633,"date":"2026-08-22T01:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T23:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/?page_id=21633"},"modified":"2026-08-22T01:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T23:36:17","slug":"cant-z-1007-alcione","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/pt\/aircraft\/cant-z-1007-alcione\/","title":{"rendered":"CANT Z.1007 Alcione: Italy\u2019s All-Wood Trimotor Bomber"},"content":{"rendered":"<style> html{overflow-x:hidden} body.page-id-21633{overflow-x:hidden} body.page-id-21633 h1.entry-title.main_title{display:none} body.page-id-21633 #sidebar{display:none} body.page-id-21633 #left-area{width:100%!important;float:none;padding:0} body.page-id-21633 #main-content .container::before{display:none!important;background:none!important} body.page-id-21633 #main-content .container{padding-top:0} #mfam{width:100vw;margin-left:calc(50% - 50vw);overflow:hidden;font-family:'Gilroy 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.cards,#mfam .cstats{grid-template-columns:1fr} #mfam .hero h1{font-size:31px} #mfam .claim{font-size:18px} #mfam .stat .n{font-size:22px} #mfam .scard{flex-basis:280px} #mfam .gallery-track figure{flex-basis:300px} } #z1007-map-widget .z1007-toggle:hover{border-color:#999!important}#z1007-map-widget .z1007-toggle:not(.active){color:#999!important;border-color:#E0E0E0!important}#z1007-map-widget .z1007-toggle:not(.active) .z1007-check{opacity:0!important}#z1007-map-widget .country{fill:#E8ECF1;stroke:#C8D0DA;stroke-width:.4;transition:fill .3s,stroke .3s}#z1007-map-widget .country:hover{stroke-width:1;stroke:#999}#z1007-map-widget .country.cat-migflug{fill:#5C91FF;stroke:#3A6FD8;stroke-width:.7}#z1007-map-widget .country.cat-combat{fill:url(#camo-pattern);stroke:#4A6741;stroke-width:.7}#z1007-map-widget .country.cat-current{fill:#555;stroke:#333;stroke-width:.7}#z1007-map-widget .country.cat-former{fill:#C0C0C0;stroke:#999;stroke-width:.5}#z1007-tooltip .tt-name{font-size:15px;font-weight:700;display:block;margin-bottom:4px}#z1007-tooltip .tt-cat{font-size:11px;font-weight:400;color:#aaa;display:block;margin-bottom:6px;letter-spacing:.3px}#z1007-tooltip .tt-fleet{font-size:12px;font-weight:600;color:#ccc;display:block;margin-bottom:4px}#z1007-tooltip .tt-desc{font-size:12px;color:#ccc;line-height:1.5;display:block}@media(max-width:600px){#z1007-map-widget .z1007-toggle{padding:6px 10px!important;font-size:12px!important}#z1007-map-widget .z1007-toggle div{width:12px!important;height:12px!important}#z1007-count{font-size:13px!important}#z1007-tooltip{max-width:calc(100vw - 32px)!important;font-size:12px!important;padding:8px 12px!important}}<\/style>\n<div id=\"mfam\">\n<div class=\"hero\"><img data-opt-id=1389990484  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:703\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-alcione-regia-aeronautica-bomber.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" class=\"hero-img\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%20703%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22703%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22703%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 Alcione, an Italian three-engine wooden medium bomber of the Regia Aeronautica in flight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"hero-shade\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"hero-inner\">\n<div class=\"crumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/\">Aircraft Museum<\/a> \/ CANT Z.1007 Alcione<\/div>\n<h1>CANT Z.1007 Alcione<\/h1>\n<p class=\"claim\">Italy\u2019s elegant three-engine \u201cKingfisher\u201d \u2014 a fast, all-wood medium bomber that looked the part and flew well when new, yet was slowly betrayed by the very timber it was built from.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stat-strip\">\n<div class=\"stat\"><span class=\"n\">Trimotor<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Three radial engines<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><span class=\"n\">~458 km\/h<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Top speed (Z.1007bis)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><span class=\"n\">~560 built<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Figures vary<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><span class=\"n\">All wood<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Fuselage and wings<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"chips\"><span class=\"chip\">Role <b>Medium bomber<\/b><\/span><span class=\"chip\">Era <b>1937\u20131945<\/b><\/span><span class=\"chip\">Engines <b>3 \u00d7 Piaggio P.XI radial<\/b><\/span><span class=\"chip\">Origin <b>Italy<\/b><\/span><span class=\"chip\">Status <b>Retired \u00b7 none survive<\/b><\/span><span class=\"chip fly\"><a href=\"#faq\">Can I fly a Z.1007 today?<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">The story<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione: Italy\u2019s wooden trimotor that flew beautifully and aged badly<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione \u2014 the name means \u201ckingfisher\u201d \u2014 was one of the three bombers on which the Regia Aeronautica leaned hardest during the Second World War, alongside the trimotor Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 and the twin-engine Fiat BR.20. Fast, clean and handsome, it promised a great deal on paper. In service, its all-wooden airframe turned that promise into a running battle with warping, damp and heat. It is an aircraft best understood not as a success or a failure, but as a fascinating, honest illustration of what a talented but under-resourced aviation industry could \u2014 and could not \u2014 achieve.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft was the work of Filippo Zappata, one of Italy\u2019s most gifted designers, who had already given the country the graceful Z.506 Airone floatplane. Working for CANT \u2014 Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini, the aircraft arm of the Trieste-based shipbuilder CRDA \u2014 Zappata drew a slender, three-engine monoplane whose lines owed as much to the drawing office\u2019s love of clean form as to any rulebook. The prototype first flew in March 1937, powered by three Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI in-line engines of around 830 horsepower each.<\/p>\n<p>Those early inline engines were quickly judged inadequate, and the definitive version, the Z.1007bis, was re-engined with three Piaggio P.XI RC.40 radials of roughly 1,000 horsepower apiece. The \u201cbis\u201d also grew: a longer, wider fuselage, a stronger structure and revised systems. It was this variant, entering service from 1939\u201340, that most people mean when they say \u201cAlcione.\u201d Around 560 aircraft were built in total, the majority of them the bis \u2014 though sources disagree, and figures as high as roughly 660 are sometimes quoted.<\/p>\n<p>What set the Alcione apart from almost every contemporary was its construction. Where Britain, Germany and the United States were racing toward all-metal stressed-skin airframes, the Z.1007 was built almost entirely of wood \u2014 wooden wings, wooden fuselage, plywood skinning over a timber frame. In 1937 that was a defensible choice: Italy was short of the light alloys that metal bombers devoured, wood was cheap and available, and a well-made wooden aeroplane could be light, smooth and aerodynamically clean. When new, the Alcione was genuinely quick and pleasant to fly, and reasonably accurate as a bomber.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pull\"><i>The Alcione was a fine aeroplane on the day it left the factory \u2014 and a maintenance headache six months later in the desert.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The trouble was that wood does not enjoy the Mediterranean and North African climate. In the heat, damp and sun of Sicily, Libya and the Aegean, wooden structures warped, glued joints weakened and skins delaminated. Aircraft left in the open \u2014 as they usually were \u2014 could go out of true, throwing controls out of rig and, in the worst cases, weakening the airframe itself. Ground crews fought a constant war against the weather, and serviceability suffered. The very material that made the Alcione cheap and elegant also made it fragile in the field.<\/p>\n<p>None of this stopped the Z.1007 from serving hard and serving widely. From 1940 it bombed Malta and hunted the convoys that kept the island alive; it flew over the Western Desert against the British Eighth Army; it took part in the Balkans campaign and the war against Greece; and a small expeditionary force even operated on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. Some Alciones flew long-range raids toward Gibraltar and the Nile Delta, feats that showed off the aircraft\u2019s range and clean design even as its defensive weakness left it exposed to modern fighters.<\/p>\n<p>These were not token appearances. For much of 1941 and 1942 the Z.1007 was a genuine workhorse of the Italian bomber arm, flying by day and night, in ones and twos on reconnaissance and in formations on set-piece raids. It carried the ordinary, unglamorous weight of an air war: the repeated sorties against the same targets, the slow attrition of crews and airframes, the constant improvisation of a force that never had quite enough of anything. If the SM.79\u2019s torpedo strikes provided the drama, the Alcione provided a good deal of the daily grind.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"inl\"><img data-opt-id=83242667  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-prototype.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"The CANT Z.1007 prototype three-engine bomber\"><figcaption>The CANT Z.1007 prototype. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Alcione\u2019s story is, in miniature, the story of the whole Italian air war. Italy had brilliant designers, brave and skilful crews, and a handful of genuinely good aircraft. What it lacked was the industrial depth to build them in quantity, the engines to keep improving them, the fuel to fly them freely, and the raw materials to make them robust. The Z.1007 embodied all of this: an elegant, capable design let down not by any single flaw but by the accumulated weight of a war its country was not equipped to fight.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth resisting the easy caricature of Italian wartime aviation as simply hopeless. The Regia Aeronautica achieved real successes, particularly in the anti-shipping war, and aircraft like the Alcione were respected by their opponents. The problems were structural and strategic rather than a matter of talent or courage. Understanding that is the key to understanding the Alcione \u2014 and to giving the men who designed, built and flew it a fair hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Because it was a bomber built for a nation with a small industrial base, the Alcione was always fighting above its weight class. Its defensive armament \u2014 a pair of heavy 12.7 mm machine guns and a pair of lighter 7.7 mm weapons \u2014 was modest by 1942 standards, and like most Italian bombers it lacked the heavy power-operated turrets that protected its Allied counterparts. Against Hurricanes and Spitfires over Malta, losses could be painful, and crews learned to rely on speed, altitude and tight defensive formations rather than on the guns themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it would be unfair to paint the Alcione only as a victim. In the hands of good crews it was a genuinely effective machine. Its long range and clean aerodynamics let it reach targets other Italian bombers could not, and its accuracy as a level bomber was respected. Italian airmen who flew it generally liked it: it was pleasant on the controls, stable, and forgiving in a way that mattered on long over-water sorties where an engine failure far from land was an ever-present fear. The three engines, for all the drag they added, meant that a crippled Alcione could often limp home on two.<\/p>\n<p>After the Italian armistice of September 1943 the surviving Alciones were split, like the country itself. Some flew on with the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force on the Allied side; others served the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR) of Mussolini\u2019s northern rump state, and a handful passed through German hands. By 1945 the type was worn out and obsolete. And here the wood took its final revenge: not one complete CANT Z.1007 survives today. The airframes that were not destroyed in the war simply rotted away. The Alcione lives on only in photographs, drawings and a few relics \u2014 an unusually clean-lined reminder of how far ingenuity could stretch a country that never had enough metal, engines or time.<\/p>\n<p>That absence of a survivor is worth dwelling on, because it shapes how we remember the aircraft. The SM.79 has preserved examples; the great Allied bombers fill museums; even many obscure metal types have a single airframe hanging under a roof somewhere. The Alcione has none. Every image on this page is a photograph, because photographs are all that is left. For an aircraft that was, in its day, one of the three pillars of the Italian bomber force, that is a strikingly complete disappearance \u2014 and a direct consequence of the design choice that also made it possible.<\/p>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">01<\/span><span class=\"gt\">What the name \u201cAlcione\u201d means and where the Z.1007 fits among Italy\u2019s wartime bombers<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>\u201cAlcione\u201d is Italian for kingfisher, part of a CANT tradition of naming aircraft after birds \u2014 the Z.506 was the Airone (heron) and the Z.501 the Gabbiano (seagull). The name draws on the Greek myth of Alcyone, whose story is tied to the calm \u201chalcyon days\u201d when the kingfisher was said to nest on the sea. For a maritime-minded firm on the Adriatic, it was a fitting choice, and it hints at the over-water role the aircraft would come to play.<\/p>\n<p>The Z.1007 is almost always grouped with two other aircraft as the backbone of the Regia Aeronautica\u2019s bomber force: the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, also a wooden trimotor, and the Fiat BR.20 Cicogna, a twin-engine all-metal design. Together they carried the bulk of Italy\u2019s level-bombing and anti-shipping effort from 1940 to 1943.<\/p>\n<p>Of the three, the SM.79 is the most famous, thanks to its torpedo-bomber exploits; the BR.20 was the most modern in construction. The Z.1007 sat between them: cleaner and, in some respects, more capable than the BR.20, but sharing the SM.79\u2019s wooden Achilles\u2019 heel. Comparing the trio is the fairest way to understand the Alcione \u2014 it was neither Italy\u2019s best bomber nor its worst, but a characteristic product of Italian aeronautical thinking in the late 1930s.<\/p>\n<p>It is also worth remembering how quickly bomber design was moving in this era. The Alcione was conceived in the mid-1930s, when a fast twin- or tri-motor carrying a tonne of bombs at nearly 300 mph was a formidable weapon. By 1943 the yardstick had become the four-engine heavy \u2014 the Lancaster, the B-17, the B-24 \u2014 carrying several times the load over far greater distances. The Alcione did not get worse; the war simply moved past the category it belonged to, and Italy lacked the industry to leap to the next.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">02<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Filippo Zappata and the design house behind the Alcione<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Filippo Zappata (1894\u20131994) trained as an engineer and worked in France for Bl\u00e9riot before returning to Italy. His designs were known for their clean aerodynamics and elegant proportions. At CANT he produced the Z.506 Airone, a floatplane that set records and served as a bomber and air-sea-rescue aircraft, before turning to the landplane bomber that became the Z.1007.<\/p>\n<p>CANT itself \u2014 Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini \u2014 was the aviation subsidiary of CRDA, Cantieri Riuniti dell\u2019Adriatico, a major shipbuilder at Monfalcone near Trieste. That maritime heritage is part of why wooden construction, familiar from boatbuilding, came so naturally to the firm. It also helps explain the Alcione\u2019s ship-like structural craftsmanship \u2014 and, ultimately, its vulnerability to the elements.<\/p>\n<p>Zappata\u2019s career did not end with the war. He continued to design aircraft into the post-war years, including the BZ.308 airliner, and lived to the remarkable age of 100. His reputation rests on a handful of clean, ambitious designs produced for a country whose industry could rarely match his imagination \u2014 the Alcione among the most characteristic of them. In another aviation nation, with metal and mass production behind it, the same designer\u2019s ideas might have aged very differently.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">03<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Why Italy built a front-line bomber almost entirely out of wood<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>By the mid-1930s most major air forces were moving to all-metal, stressed-skin construction. Italy chose differently for reasons that were partly strategic and partly practical. The country had limited domestic supplies of aluminium and other light alloys, which sanctions and the drive toward autarky (economic self-sufficiency) made more acute. Wood, plywood and skilled woodworkers were plentiful, and a wooden aircraft could be built without straining scarce metal stocks.<\/p>\n<p>A well-designed wooden airframe could also be very smooth and light, which suited a fast bomber. The gamble was on durability. In the temperate factory conditions of northern Italy the aircraft were fine; in the field, exposed to sun, salt air and humidity, the timber and glue that made the Alcione possible became its greatest liability. It was a rational choice that the war\u2019s conditions turned into a costly one.<\/p>\n<p>There is a certain irony here. Britain built one of the war\u2019s most celebrated aircraft, the de Havilland Mosquito, almost entirely of wood \u2014 and it worked superbly. The difference lay partly in climate, partly in the adhesives and manufacturing techniques used, and partly in how the aircraft were housed and maintained. Wood was never inherently the wrong answer; it was the combination of Mediterranean and desert service, open-air parking and a hard-pressed maintenance organisation that turned the Alcione\u2019s timber from an asset into a chronic problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Design &#038; engineering<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">What made the CANT Z.1007 Alcione fast \u2014 and what made it fragile<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Three design decisions define the Alcione: an aerodynamically clean trimotor layout, an all-wood structure, and a defensive scheme that never quite kept pace with the war. Understanding them explains both the aircraft\u2019s early promise and its later reputation \u2014 and why the same aircraft could be praised and criticised in almost the same breath.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cards\">\n<div class=\"card\"><span class=\"num\">01<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The trimotor layout<\/h3>\n<p>Three engines gave useful power and a measure of redundancy over the sea, but the nose-mounted engine forced the bomb-aimer and forward gun into a compromised position and added drag and weight compared with a twin. It was a distinctively Italian solution \u2014 shared with the SM.79.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\"><span class=\"num\">02<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>All-wood structure<\/h3>\n<p>Wooden wings and a plywood-skinned wooden fuselage made the Alcione light, smooth and cheap in materials. The same structure warped and weakened in Mediterranean heat and damp, hurting serviceability and, eventually, safety.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\"><span class=\"num\">03<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Light defensive armament<\/h3>\n<p>Two 12.7 mm and two 7.7 mm machine guns, without heavy power turrets, left the aircraft exposed to modern fighters. Speed and altitude were its main defences \u2014 adequate in 1940, marginal by 1942.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inl\"><img data-opt-id=907274658  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-alcione-side-view.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 Alcione Italian trimotor bomber, side view\"><figcaption>CANT Z.1007 Alcione. San Diego Air &#038; Space Museum Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Look closely at any Alcione and the tension in its design becomes clear. The wing is a clean cantilever monoplane structure, beautifully faired into the fuselage, with none of the struts or bracing that cluttered earlier bombers. The fuselage is deep and smooth. Everything about the shape says \u201cfast\u201d \u2014 and it was. Yet every one of those elegant surfaces was a wooden component that had to be built, sealed and maintained to a high standard to stay true, and that standard was hard to hold in a wartime field unit.<\/p>\n<p>The Alcione was also a large aircraft for a medium bomber, with a wingspan of nearly 25 metres. That size gave it the internal volume for fuel and bombs that underpinned its long range, but it also meant a lot of wooden structure to keep rigid. A metal wing of the same span could be made stiff relatively easily; a wooden one relied on the integrity of its spars, ribs and glued plywood skin \u2014 exactly the elements most vulnerable to moisture and heat. The design\u2019s greatest virtues and its greatest weaknesses were, quite literally, made of the same material.<\/p>\n<p>It is a mistake, though, to imagine the Alcione as flimsy. A well-maintained example was a strong, capable aircraft, and the redundancy of three engines gave it a genuine survivability edge over water. The problem was never the design on paper; it was the gap between the aircraft as drawn and the aircraft as it existed after months in the sun at a dusty Libyan airstrip. Closing that gap took more skilled labour and better facilities than Italy could consistently provide.<\/p>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">04<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Piaggio P.XI radials and the Alcione\u2019s performance<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The definitive Z.1007bis was powered by three Piaggio P.XI RC.40 fourteen-cylinder radial engines, each producing roughly 1,000 horsepower at takeoff. This gave a maximum speed of about 458 km\/h (285 mph) and a service ceiling near 7,500 m (24,600 ft) \u2014 competitive figures for a medium bomber in 1940. A later variant, the Z.1007ter, used the more powerful Piaggio P.XIX to claw back performance as combat loads grew, but only around 150 were built.<\/p>\n<p>Range was a genuine strength: roughly 1,795 km (about 1,115 miles) with a useful bomb load, enough for the long over-water raids toward Gibraltar and the eastern Mediterranean that became something of an Alcione speciality. All of these figures should be read as nominal \u2014 wartime conditions, weathered airframes and heavy loads all eroded book performance.<\/p>\n<p>The radial engines were a mixed blessing. Air-cooled radials were rugged and, in principle, easier to keep running in dusty, hot conditions than liquid-cooled inlines, which is one reason the switch from the Isotta-Fraschini inlines made sense. But three engines meant three times the servicing, three times the fuel plumbing and a thirstier aircraft overall. Italian engines of the period were also generally less powerful than their German, British or American equivalents, so the Alcione was always working to extract competitive performance from modest horsepower \u2014 a recurring theme across Italian wartime aviation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">05<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Bomb load, torpedoes and the offensive role<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Alcione could carry about 1,200 kg (2,645 lb) of bombs internally, with provision for additional external load bringing the maximum to roughly 2,200 kg (about 4,900 lb) in some configurations. In the anti-shipping role it could be adapted to carry torpedoes \u2014 sources describe a capacity of up to two torpedoes \u2014 following the same maritime-strike philosophy that made the SM.79 famous.<\/p>\n<p>As a level bomber the Z.1007 was regarded as reasonably accurate for its day, helped by a stable platform and a competent bombsight. Its limitation was rarely accuracy; it was the modest size of the load compared with the four-engine heavies the Allies were fielding, and the difficulty of getting to and from the target in the face of increasingly capable enemy fighters.<\/p>\n<p>The nose-mounted engine created a specific design headache that shaped the whole aircraft. Unlike a twin with a clear glazed nose for the bomb-aimer, the trimotor had to route the bombing position and the forward field of fire around the centre engine. The Alcione solved this with a ventral gondola and offset positions, an arrangement that worked but was never ideal \u2014 a reminder that the trimotor layout, so beloved of Italian designers, always carried a hidden ergonomic and aerodynamic tax.<\/p>\n<p>In the anti-shipping role the aircraft joined a distinctly Italian tradition. Italy invested heavily in aerial torpedo attack, and its torpedo-bomber crews \u2014 the <i>aerosiluranti<\/i> \u2014 became some of the most respected airmen of the Mediterranean war. The SM.79 is the type most associated with this work, but the Alcione\u2019s range and stability made it a natural candidate for maritime strike as well, and it contributed to a campaign that genuinely worried Allied naval planners for a time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">06<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Single fin or twin: telling the tail variants apart<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>One of the quickest ways to date an Alcione photograph is to look at the tail. The original Z.1007 and the early Z.1007bis aircraft had a single vertical fin and rudder. Later Z.1007bis production switched to a twin-fin (twin-tail) arrangement, adopted to improve stability \u2014 particularly useful as a steadier bombing and gun platform.<\/p>\n<p>Both configurations flew in front-line service simultaneously, so \u201csingle-tail\u201d and \u201ctwin-tail\u201d are not neat chronological markers of separate marks \u2014 they overlap within the bis series. It is a genuinely confusing point, and even careful references sometimes muddle it, so treat any single photograph with a little caution.<\/p>\n<p>The move to a twin fin followed a logic common to bombers of the era: a twin tail can give the rear gunner a clearer field of fire and can improve directional stability, both useful in a bombing aircraft. It also changes the aircraft\u2019s silhouette dramatically, which is why the two versions can look almost like different types at a glance. If you are trying to identify an Alcione in a wartime photograph, the tail is the first thing to check \u2014 followed by the shape of the ventral gondola and the engine cowlings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">At war<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione\u2019s war: Malta, the desert, the Balkans and the Eastern Front<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">From Italy\u2019s entry into the war in June 1940 to the armistice of 1943 and beyond, the Alcione fought across almost every theatre the Regia Aeronautica touched \u2014 and paid a steady price for its wooden airframe and light defences.<\/p>\n<p>The Alcione\u2019s war began over the central Mediterranean, where the great strategic prize was Malta. From Sicilian bases, Z.1007bis units flew repeated raids against the island\u2019s airfields, harbours and the convoys that kept it fighting. These were dangerous missions: Malta\u2019s Hurricanes and, later, Spitfires exacted a toll, and the Alcione\u2019s modest defensive battery meant that formation flying and fighter escort were essential to survival.<\/p>\n<p>Across the water in North Africa, Alciones supported the see-saw desert campaigns, bombing British positions, ports and supply lines from Libyan fields. The aircraft\u2019s range let it reach deep into Egypt, and some units flew notably long over-water missions \u2014 including attacks directed against the Gibraltar convoy route \u2014 that demonstrated the design\u2019s aerodynamic efficiency even as the desert climate chewed through its timber.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"inl\"><img data-opt-id=1099855594  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:655\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-bis-italian-bomber-1943.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%20655%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22655%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22655%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 bis Italian bomber photographed in May 1943\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 bis photographed in May 1943 (80-G-64147). U.S. Navy \/ National Museum of the U.S. Navy, public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The rhythm of these operations was punishing. A typical anti-shipping or Malta mission meant hours over open water, often at the edge of fighter range, with the ever-present risk of an engine failure far from any friendly coast. Navigation over a featureless sea, in an era before modern aids, was itself a serious challenge, and the bombardier-navigator earned his place in the crew. When the enemy was found, the Alcione had to press its attack through anti-aircraft fire and fighters while relying on speed and formation for protection.<\/p>\n<p>Italian bomber crews flew these missions with considerable courage, and the anti-shipping campaign in particular achieved real successes against Allied convoys \u2014 though the SM.79 torpedo bombers tend to get the credit. The Alcione contributed to a sustained effort that, for a time, made the central Mediterranean genuinely dangerous for Allied shipping. That it could not be decisive reflected the wider imbalance of the war rather than any failure of the aircraft or its crews.<\/p>\n<p>The Alcione also served in the Balkans. It took part in the April 1941 invasion of Yugoslavia and in the long, bitter war against Greece, operating from Italian and Albanian bases. Further east, a small Italian expeditionary air contingent flew the type on the Eastern Front alongside German forces, where reconnaissance and bombing sorties over the southern Soviet Union added yet another climate \u2014 this time bitter cold \u2014 to the list of environments the wooden airframe had to endure.<\/p>\n<p>This geographical spread is remarkable for an aircraft so often dismissed as a footnote. In the space of a few years the Alcione operated over the western Mediterranean toward Gibraltar, across the deserts of Libya and Egypt, through the mountains of Greece and the Balkans, and over the steppe of the Eastern Front. Few medium bombers of any nation saw such a range of theatres and climates, and the fact that the type held together across all of them \u2014 even imperfectly \u2014 says something for the fundamental soundness of Zappata\u2019s design when it was kept in good order.<\/p>\n<p>The Alcione also found a second career as a reconnaissance and transport aircraft. Its range and reasonable speed made it useful for long-distance photo-reconnaissance over the Mediterranean, and some sources even credit Italian aircraft of the type with reconnaissance flights in the general direction of the British Isles during the period of Italian participation alongside the Luftwaffe. As the bomber role became untenable, surviving airframes were increasingly used for the jobs that did not require flying into the teeth of Allied fighter defences.<\/p>\n<p>By 1942\u201343 the Alcione was increasingly outclassed. Allied fighters were faster and more numerous, Allied bombers heavier, and Italy could not replace losses quickly enough. When the armistice came in September 1943, the surviving fleet fractured: some aircraft served the Allied-aligned Co-Belligerent Air Force, others the ANR of the Italian Social Republic in the north, and a few fell into German hands. None of these operators could keep an ageing wooden bomber viable for long, and by the end of the war the type had effectively vanished from front-line strength.<\/p>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">07<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Alcione over Malta and the convoy war<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The siege of Malta was the defining campaign of the central Mediterranean, and the Z.1007 was one of its regular visitors. Italian bombers struck the island\u2019s three airfields, the Grand Harbour at Valletta and the naval facilities that made Malta such a thorn in Axis supply lines. When British convoys fought their way through \u2014 operations with names like Pedestal \u2014 Italian and German aircraft, the Alcione among them, attacked them relentlessly.<\/p>\n<p>These operations showed the Alcione at both its best and its worst: fast and long-legged enough to reach and strike, but vulnerable enough that raids without adequate fighter cover could be mauled. The convoy war was ultimately a war of attrition that Italy, with its limited industrial base, could not win.<\/p>\n<p>Malta\u2019s survival was one of the decisive stories of the Mediterranean war. From the island, British aircraft, submarines and surface ships savaged the convoys carrying fuel and supplies to Axis forces in North Africa. Neutralising Malta was therefore a strategic necessity for the Axis, and the Italian bomber force \u2014 Alciones included \u2014 spent much of 1941 and 1942 trying to do exactly that. That they failed was not for want of effort; it reflected the island\u2019s remarkable defences, the flow of Allied reinforcements, and the limits of the forces Italy and Germany could bring to bear.<\/p>\n<p>For the Alcione crews, Malta meant a particular kind of ordeal: a relatively short flight from Sicily into concentrated anti-aircraft fire and a well-organised fighter defence, repeated again and again. Losses were steady, and the psychological strain of flying the same dangerous route on a schedule was considerable. It is easy, decades later, to reduce these operations to lines on a map; for the men in the wooden fuselages, each was a few hours in which speed and altitude were the only real protection between them and a very capable enemy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">08<\/span><span class=\"gt\">After the 1943 armistice: Co-Belligerent Air Force and ANR<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Italy\u2019s surrender in September 1943 divided its armed forces. Aircraft and crews in the south and the Allied-occupied areas often continued to fly under the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force, now fighting on the Allied side. In the German-occupied north, the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR) of Mussolini\u2019s Italian Social Republic operated whatever it could keep serviceable.<\/p>\n<p>Surviving Alciones ended up on both sides of this divide, and some passed through Luftwaffe hands. For a wooden aircraft already worn by years of Mediterranean service, this fragmented, under-resourced final chapter was effectively the end. Attrition, obsolescence and the simple decay of the airframes finished what the enemy had started.<\/p>\n<p>The armistice split is one of the more poignant aspects of the Italian air war. Crews who had trained and fought together suddenly found themselves potentially on opposite sides, flying the same aircraft type under different flags. For the Alcione specifically, it meant that the last examples were worked hard by organisations that had neither the spare parts nor the industrial backing to sustain them. That any flew at all into 1944 is a testament to the ingenuity of Italian ground crews rather than to the health of the fleet.<\/p>\n<p>By this point the Alcione had also been largely overtaken in its intended role. The bomber war over Italy in 1943\u201345 was dominated by Allied heavy bombers operating in numbers the Regia Aeronautica had never been able to match, and by fighters against which a lightly armed wooden trimotor stood little chance. The surviving Alciones were increasingly relegated to secondary duties \u2014 transport, liaison, training and reconnaissance \u2014 where their range and docile handling still had value even as their days as front-line bombers ended. It was a quiet, undramatic finish for an aircraft that had once ranged across the whole Mediterranean.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Specifications<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">CANT Z.1007 Alcione full specifications and cost data<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Figures below are drawn from standard references for the Z.1007bis, the most numerous variant. Wartime performance figures are nominal: weathered wooden airframes and heavy operational loads routinely fell short of the book. Where different reputable sources disagree \u2014 and for Italian wartime aircraft they frequently do \u2014 we have given the most commonly cited value and flagged the uncertainty rather than pretending to a false precision.<\/p>\n<div class=\"specwrap\">\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<tr>\n<th>Type<\/th>\n<td>Three-engine (trimotor) medium bomber<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Origin<\/th>\n<td>Italy \u00b7 CANT (CRDA), Monfalcone \/ Trieste<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Designer<\/th>\n<td>Filippo Zappata<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>First flight<\/th>\n<td>March 1937 (prototype)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Crew<\/th>\n<td>5 (two pilots, flight engineer, radio operator, bombardier-navigator)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Length<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 18.35 m (60 ft 2 in)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Wingspan<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 24.8 m (81 ft 4 in)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Height<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 5.2 m (17 ft)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Wing area<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 70 m\u00b2 (753 sq ft)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Construction<\/th>\n<td>All-wood: wooden wings and fuselage, plywood skinning<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Tail<\/th>\n<td>Single fin (early) or twin fin (later Z.1007bis)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Number built<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 560 total (figures vary; some sources \u2248 660)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<tr>\n<th>Engines (Z.1007bis)<\/th>\n<td>3 \u00d7 Piaggio P.XI RC.40 radial, \u2248 1,000 hp each<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Engines (early Z.1007)<\/th>\n<td>3 \u00d7 Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI inline, \u2248 830 hp each<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Maximum speed<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 458 km\/h (285 mph) \u2014 nominal<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Range<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 1,795 km (1,115 mi) with bomb load<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Service ceiling<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 7,500 m (24,600 ft)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Bomb load<\/th>\n<td>\u2248 1,200 kg internal (up to \u2248 2,200 kg combined); or torpedoes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Defensive armament<\/th>\n<td>2 \u00d7 12.7 mm + 2 \u00d7 7.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Main variants<\/th>\n<td>Z.1007, Z.1007bis (most numerous), Z.1007ter<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Primary operator<\/th>\n<td>Regia Aeronautica (later ANR and Co-Belligerent Air Force)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Surviving examples<\/th>\n<td>None \u2014 no complete airframe exists<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Unit cost<\/th>\n<td>Not reliably recorded (wartime Italy)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Cost per flight hour<\/th>\n<td>Not applicable \u2014 no surviving or airworthy example<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"fnote\">Sources differ on production totals, dimensions and loaded performance; where they conflict we have given the most commonly cited figure and flagged it. No complete Z.1007 survives, so no restored-airframe measurements exist to settle the discrepancies.<\/p>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">09<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione\u2019s cost: why there is no honest price tag<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>There is no reliable unit-cost figure for the Z.1007. Wartime Italian aircraft costing was opaque, inflation and materials shortages distorted the numbers, and the surviving records are patchy. Any single lira-or-dollar figure you see quoted online should be treated with heavy scepticism.<\/p>\n<p>The cost-per-flight-hour field on this page is therefore marked \u201cnot applicable.\u201d Unlike the jets MiGFlug flies, there is no surviving, airworthy Alcione anywhere in the world \u2014 no aircraft to fuel, insure, maintain or fly \u2014 so an hourly operating cost simply does not exist. What we can say is that wood made the airframe cheap in scarce metal, and expensive in maintenance labour once the weather went to work on it.<\/p>\n<p>It is a useful contrast with the warbirds and jets that can actually be flown today. A flyable historic aircraft has a very real, very large hourly cost \u2014 fuel, engine overhauls, insurance, spares, skilled maintenance \u2014 which is precisely why experiences like MiGFlug\u2019s exist to share that cost across many enthusiasts. The Alcione sits at the opposite extreme: its \u201ccost\u201d today is purely historical, measured in the effort of the museums and archivists who keep its memory alive rather than in any figure on an operator\u2019s balance sheet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">10<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Variants: Z.1007, Z.1007bis and Z.1007ter<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p><b>Z.1007<\/b> \u2014 the original production version, powered by three Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI inline engines and fitted with a single tail fin. Relatively few were built before the design was improved.<\/p>\n<p><b>Z.1007bis<\/b> \u2014 the definitive and most numerous version, re-engined with three Piaggio P.XI radials, enlarged and strengthened. Built with both single-fin and, later, twin-fin (twin-tail) arrangements. This is the aircraft most people picture as the Alcione.<\/p>\n<p><b>Z.1007ter<\/b> \u2014 a later, less common variant with more powerful Piaggio P.XIX engines to restore performance as loads and equipment grew; only around 150 were produced.<\/p>\n<p>Within these broad marks there were numerous sub-variants and field modifications: changes to armament, equipment for the torpedo-bomber role, revised defensive positions and the single- versus twin-fin tail already discussed. Production was spread across more than one manufacturer under licence, which \u2014 combined with wartime expediency \u2014 means that no two batches were quite identical. For the modeller or historian this is part of the aircraft\u2019s appeal and part of its frustration: precise identification often comes down to details of the cowlings, gondola and tail rather than to a tidy variant label.<\/p>\n<p>The progression from Asso inlines to Piaggio radials to the more powerful P.XIX also traces the central problem of the whole programme in miniature. Each step was an attempt to keep a fundamentally mid-1930s design competitive against a rapidly advancing threat. The improvements were real, but they were incremental, and they were always chasing a target that moved faster than Italian industry could follow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">11<\/span><span class=\"gt\">How the Alcione compares with the SM.79 and the BR.20<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The three main Regia Aeronautica bombers make an instructive set. The <b>SM.79 Sparviero<\/b> was also a wooden trimotor, slightly earlier, and became legendary as a torpedo bomber. The <b>Fiat BR.20 Cicogna<\/b> was a twin-engine, all-metal design \u2014 more modern in structure but less numerous and, by many accounts, less pleasant to fly.<\/p>\n<p>The Z.1007 slotted in as a clean, fast trimotor that shared the SM.79\u2019s wooden vulnerability while offering broadly comparable bomb-carrying ability. None of the three could match the four-engine heavy bombers that Britain and the United States were fielding \u2014 a reflection less of Italian design talent than of Italy\u2019s limited industrial capacity.<\/p>\n<p>If you want a single sentence to remember the trio by: the BR.20 was the modern one, the SM.79 was the famous one, and the Z.1007 was the elegant one. All three were good enough to fight, none was good enough to win, and all three were ultimately overwhelmed less by superior enemy aircraft than by the simple arithmetic of production. Italy built its bombers in the hundreds; its enemies built theirs in the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">12<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Life aboard the Alcione: the five-man crew and their jobs<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>A Z.1007bis carried a crew of five, and the trimotor layout gave each of them a demanding job. Two pilots sat side by side, sharing the workload on the long over-water sorties that were the aircraft\u2019s speciality; on a mission of many hours, having a second pair of hands was not a luxury. Behind and around them worked a flight engineer, a radio operator and a bombardier-navigator, the last of whom also manned a defensive gun position.<\/p>\n<p>Those defensive positions were cramped and exposed. Italian bombers of the period rarely enjoyed the roomy, power-operated turrets that protected their Allied opposite numbers; instead, gunners hunched over hand-trained machine guns in a dorsal position and a ventral gondola. In the heat of the Mediterranean the wooden fuselage could become an oven; over Russia it offered little against the cold. Long missions in an unpressurised, lightly heated aircraft, with the constant drone of three radial engines, took a real physical toll on the men who flew it.<\/p>\n<p>For all that, crews spoke well of the Alcione. It was stable, it handled pleasantly, and the redundancy of three engines was a genuine comfort over open water. The aircraft asked a lot of its people, but it also gave them a fighting chance of getting home \u2014 which, in the anti-shipping war, was not something every bomber could promise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">13<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Why the Alcione lost, and what that says about Italy\u2019s air war<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Alcione\u2019s decline was not really a story about the aircraft at all. It was a story about industry, strategy and time. Italy entered the war with a bomber that was competitive in 1940 and had no realistic way to replace it with something dramatically better before it became obsolete. The Z.1007ter and various improvements helped at the margins, but the fundamental leap \u2014 to fast, heavily armed, all-metal aircraft produced in enormous numbers \u2014 was beyond the country\u2019s means.<\/p>\n<p>Fuel shortages compounded the problem. Italy was chronically short of aviation fuel, which limited training, restricted operations and left aircraft grounded when they were most needed. A bomber force can only be as effective as the fuel, spares and trained crews behind it allow, and on every one of those measures Italy was stretched thin. The Alcione flew into this headwind for its entire operational life.<\/p>\n<p>The result is a type that is easy to underrate. Judged only by outcomes, the Alcione looks like a failure. Judged by what it was asked to do \u2014 fight a modern war on a shoestring, in punishing climates, against better-resourced enemies \u2014 it looks a good deal more respectable. It was a capable aircraft trapped in an impossible strategic situation, and it is fairer to remember it that way.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a broader lesson in the Alcione\u2019s fate about the relationship between industry and air power. The Second World War in the air was won as much in factories and oil fields as in dogfights. The nations that could design, build, fuel and repair aircraft in overwhelming numbers prevailed; those that could not, however clever their individual designs, were ground down. Italy fielded some genuinely good aircraft and some genuinely gifted airmen, and it still lost the air war comprehensively, because it could never match the sheer productive weight of its enemies. The Alcione is a particularly clear window onto that reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"gd\">\n<summary><span class=\"exn\">14<\/span><span class=\"gt\">No survivors: why not a single Alcione remains<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Of the roughly 560 aircraft built, not one complete example survives. This is unusually total. Even quite obscure metal aircraft of the period often left at least one survivor \u2014 a captured example, a museum piece, a wreck recovered decades later. The Alcione left effectively nothing.<\/p>\n<p>The reasons are the same ones that dogged the aircraft in service. Wood does not survive neglect. Airframes that were shot down, scrapped or simply abandoned at war\u2019s end were not the kind of thing anyone thought to preserve in 1945, and by the time interest in wartime aviation grew, the wooden structures had long since rotted, burned or been broken up. There were no long-term storage survivors quietly waiting in a dry hangar, because a wooden bomber left outdoors for a few years is not a restoration project \u2014 it is compost.<\/p>\n<p>What remains are photographs, a scattering of relics and components, technical drawings, and the memories preserved in books and archives. For enthusiasts and modelmakers this makes the Alcione a slightly ghostly subject: a front-line aircraft of a major air force that you can study in every detail on paper yet never stand beside. It is one more way in which the choice of wood defined the aircraft \u2014 this time long after the last one flew.<\/p>\n<p>There is a small, appropriate irony in the fact that the best surviving records of the Alcione are often photographs taken by its enemies \u2014 the identified U.S. Navy images reproduced on this page among them. An aircraft that Italy built in the hundreds is now known largely through the lenses of the countries it fought against, and through the patient work of museums and archivists who have kept those images accessible. If you want to see a Z.1007, a screen or a printed page is the only place left to do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Timeline<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione from drawing board to disappearance<\/h2>\n<div class=\"tl\">\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1935<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Requirement.<\/b> The Regia Aeronautica seeks a fast modern medium bomber; CANT and Zappata respond with the Z.1007 concept.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1936<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Design begins.<\/b> Filippo Zappata draws a clean three-engine bomber for CANT, building on his earlier Z.506 experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1937<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>First flight.<\/b> The prototype takes to the air in March, powered by three Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI inline engines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1938<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Into service.<\/b> Early Z.1007 aircraft begin entering Regia Aeronautica units as the type is refined.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1939<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The bis arrives.<\/b> The re-engined, enlarged Z.1007bis with Piaggio P.XI radials flies in July and becomes the definitive version.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1940<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>War.<\/b> Italy enters the Second World War in June; Alciones begin operations over the Mediterranean and Malta.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1941<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Balkans and beyond.<\/b> The type takes part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the war against Greece, and flies long-range Mediterranean raids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1941\u201342<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Eastern Front.<\/b> A small Italian expeditionary force operates the Alcione against the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1942<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Outclassed.<\/b> Allied fighters and heavier bombers increasingly overmatch the wooden trimotor; losses mount.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1943<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Armistice.<\/b> Italy surrenders in September; surviving Alciones split between the Co-Belligerent Air Force, the ANR and German use.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1944<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Twilight.<\/b> Worn, obsolete and hard to maintain, the fleet dwindles rapidly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1945<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>End of service.<\/b> The type effectively disappears from front-line strength by war\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">1943\u201345<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Split service.<\/b> Surviving aircraft serve the Co-Belligerent Air Force, the ANR and briefly German units before wearing out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">Post-war<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Scrapped and forgotten.<\/b> The last airframes are broken up or left to decay; no effort is made to preserve a wooden bomber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\"><span class=\"yr\">Today<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>No survivors.<\/b> Not a single complete Z.1007 remains; the wooden airframes did not last. Only photographs, drawings and a few relics survive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Stories<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">Twelve things worth knowing about the CANT Z.1007 Alcione<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Twelve short stories \u2014 swipe or use the arrows \u2014 that capture the character of Italy\u2019s wooden kingfisher.<\/p>\n<div class=\"carou\">\n<div id=\"hxtrack\" class=\"track\">\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 01<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A bird called kingfisher<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cAlcione\u201d means kingfisher, drawn from the Greek myth of Alcyone and the calm \u201chalcyon days.\u201d CANT named its aircraft after birds \u2014 the Airone (heron) and Gabbiano (seagull) were siblings \u2014 a small poetic streak in a very serious business, and a fitting name for an aircraft that would spend its life over the sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 02<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Built like a boat<\/h3>\n<p>CANT was the aviation arm of CRDA, a Trieste shipbuilder. Its craftsmen knew wood intimately, which is part of why a wooden bomber felt natural \u2014 and why the joinery was often superb. The same maritime skills that produced fine hulls produced fine wooden airframes; the same material that suited a ship in the water suited a bomber far less well in the desert sun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 03<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Fast when new<\/h3>\n<p>Clean lines and three radial engines made the fresh-from-the-factory Alcione genuinely quick for a medium bomber \u2014 around 458 km\/h, competitive with its metal rivals in 1940. Italian designers were masters of aerodynamic elegance, and the Z.1007 was one of the prettiest bombers of its generation, a machine that looked fast standing still.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 04<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The desert\u2019s revenge<\/h3>\n<p>Sun, heat, damp and salt air warped timber and weakened glue. An aircraft that flew beautifully in northern Italy could go out of true within months in Libya, throwing controls out of rig and, in the worst cases, weakening the structure itself. Ground crews fought a constant, losing battle against the weather.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 05<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>One tail or two?<\/h3>\n<p>Early aircraft had a single fin; later Z.1007bis machines carried a twin tail for better stability and a clearer field of fire for the rear gunner. Both flew at once, which still trips up modelmakers and historians today \u2014 the tail is the first thing to check when identifying an Alcione in a photograph.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 06<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Long legs<\/h3>\n<p>With a range near 1,800 km, the Alcione flew some remarkably long over-water raids, including missions directed toward the Gibraltar convoy route \u2014 a showcase for its aerodynamic efficiency and a reminder that clean design can stretch modest engine power a very long way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 07<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Malta, again and again<\/h3>\n<p>From Sicily, Alciones bombed Malta\u2019s airfields and harbour and hunted the convoys that kept the island alive, flying through some of the most heavily defended airspace in the Mediterranean. Neutralising Malta was a strategic necessity the Axis never quite achieved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 08<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The torpedo option<\/h3>\n<p>Like the SM.79, the Z.1007 could be adapted to carry torpedoes, joining Italy\u2019s determined \u2014 and at times very effective \u2014 anti-shipping campaign. The over-water strike role suited the aircraft\u2019s range and stability, even if the SM.79 took most of the glory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 09<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Under-gunned<\/h3>\n<p>Two 12.7 mm and two 7.7 mm machine guns, no heavy power turrets. Against Hurricanes and Spitfires, the Alcione\u2019s best defences were speed, altitude and tight formation flying. It was a weakness common to Italian bombers, and it cost crews dearly as the war went on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 10<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Cold as well as heat<\/h3>\n<p>On the Eastern Front the same wooden airframe that hated Mediterranean damp now faced Russian frost. Few aircraft were asked to endure such a range of climates, and the timber structure suffered at both extremes \u2014 one more environment in which wood proved a demanding material.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 11<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A country divided<\/h3>\n<p>After the 1943 armistice the fleet split between the Allied-aligned Co-Belligerent Air Force and the ANR of the northern Social Republic \u2014 the same aircraft, flown by former comrades, now on opposite sides. It is one of the most poignant chapters in the Italian air war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\"><span class=\"sn\">Story 12<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Vanished without a trace<\/h3>\n<p>No complete Z.1007 survives anywhere in the world. The wood that made it possible also ensured that, unlike many metal contemporaries, nothing was left to preserve. The Alcione exists today only in photographs, drawings and a few relics \u2014 a front-line bomber you can study but never stand beside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbtns\"><button class=\"cbtn\" onclick=\"this.closest('.carou').querySelector('.track').scrollBy({left:-712,behavior:'smooth'})\">\u2039<\/button><button class=\"cbtn\" onclick=\"this.closest('.carou').querySelector('.track').scrollBy({left:712,behavior:'smooth'})\">\u203a<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Gallery<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">CANT Z.1007 Alcione in photographs<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Period photographs of the Alcione in Regia Aeronautica and post-armistice service \u2014 the only kind of image that exists, since no aircraft survives to be photographed today. All images are public domain, sourced from museum and archive collections via Wikimedia Commons; credits are given beneath each photograph. Watch for the tail: single- and twin-fin aircraft both appear below.<\/p>\n<div id=\"z1007-gallery\" class=\"gallery-track\">\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1871622421  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:1041\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-bis-co-belligerent-air-force.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%201041%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%221041%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%221041%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 bis Alcione bomber of the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 bis of the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force (after 1943). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=907274658  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-alcione-side-view.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 Alcione Italian trimotor bomber, side view\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>CANT Z.1007 Alcione. San Diego Air &#038; Space Museum Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1099855594  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:655\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-bis-italian-bomber-1943.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%20655%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22655%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22655%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 bis Italian bomber photographed in May 1943\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 bis photographed in May 1943 (80-G-64147). U.S. Navy \/ National Museum of the U.S. Navy, public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1139138474  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:918\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-bis-italian-bomber-navy-photo.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%20918%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22918%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22918%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 bis Italian trimotor bomber, U.S. Navy photograph 1943\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 bis, May 1943 (80-G-64158). U.S. Navy \/ National Museum of the U.S. Navy, public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=932696354  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:1536\/h:841\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-early-series.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201536%20841%22%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22841%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%221536%22%20height%3D%22841%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 early-series single-fin Italian bomber\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>An early-series CANT Z.1007. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=83242667  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-prototype.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"The CANT Z.1007 prototype three-engine bomber\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>The CANT Z.1007 prototype. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1134996070  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-bis-bombing-mission-1941.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 bis Alcione on a bombing mission in 1941\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 bis on a bombing mission, 1941. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1152534184  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-265a-squadriglia.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"CANT Z.1007 of the 265a Squadriglia, 88 Gruppo, Regia Aeronautica\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Z.1007 of the 265a Squadriglia, 88 Gruppo. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">On video<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione on film<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">A dedicated documentary on the design, service and fate of Italy\u2019s wooden trimotor bomber \u2014 a good primer if you want to hear the story told rather than read it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"vidwrap\"><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v9xeGtsMvkQ\" title=\"The Kingfisher Gone to War \u2014 History of the CANT Z.1007 Alcione\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"vcap\">\u201cThe Kingfisher Gone to War \u2014 History of the CANT Z.1007 Alcione bomber\u201d by the WWII history channel <b>Look in The Past<\/b> (uploaded January 2025, around 11,000 views). A niche subject with no mass-market coverage; this is among the most thorough dedicated treatments available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Operations map<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">Where the CANT Z.1007 Alcione flew<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">The Alcione was an Italian aircraft through and through, but it fought far from home. This map shows its origin, the wartime theatres where it saw service, and \u2014 tellingly \u2014 an empty \u201csurviving airframes\u201d category, because none remain. Toggle the categories and hover a country for detail. Note that the \u201ctheatres\u201d category marks where the fighting took place, not the nationality of the crews: these were the skies the Regia Aeronautica\u2019s Alciones flew and fought in. Some very small theatres, such as the island of Malta, are historically central but too small to render as a coloured country at this map scale \u2014 Malta\u2019s siege is covered in detail in the text above.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mapwrap\">\n<div id=\"z1007-map-widget\" style=\"font-family:'Gilroy semiBold','Gilroy regular',Helvetica,Arial,Lucida,sans-serif;max-width:1080px;width:100%;\">\n<div id=\"z1007-map-container\" style=\"width:100%;position:relative\"><svg id=\"z1007-map-svg\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;display:block\"><\/svg><\/p>\n<div id=\"z1007-tooltip\" style=\"position:fixed;background:#1a1a2e;color:#fff;padding:10px 16px;font-size:13px;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:.3px;pointer-events:auto;opacity:0;transition:opacity .15s;z-index:1000;max-width:360px;line-height:1.5\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"z1007-controls\" style=\"display:flex;gap:8px;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:flex-start;margin-top:12px;\"><button class=\"z1007-toggle active\" data-cat=\"migflug\" data-full=\"Origin &amp; Manufacturer\" data-short=\"Origin\" style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px;padding:8px 12px;border:2px solid #5C91FF;border-radius:0;background:#fff;cursor:pointer;font-family:inherit;font-size:13px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a2e;white-space:nowrap\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"width:14px;height:14px;flex-shrink:0;background:#5C91FF\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"z1007-label\">Origin &amp; Manufacturer<\/span><span class=\"z1007-check\" style=\"font-size:10px\">&#10003;<\/span><\/button><button class=\"z1007-toggle active\" data-cat=\"combat\" data-full=\"WWII Service &amp; Theatres\" data-short=\"Theatres\" style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px;padding:8px 12px;border:2px solid #6B8E23;border-radius:0;background:#fff;cursor:pointer;font-family:inherit;font-size:13px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a2e;white-space:nowrap\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"width:14px;height:14px;flex-shrink:0;background:linear-gradient(135deg,#4A6741 25%,#6B8E23 25%,#6B8E23 50%,#556B2F 50%,#556B2F 75%,#8B9D77 75%);background-size:8px 8px\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"z1007-label\">WWII Service &amp; Theatres<\/span><span class=\"z1007-check\" style=\"font-size:10px\">&#10003;<\/span><\/button><button class=\"z1007-toggle active\" data-cat=\"current\" data-full=\"Other \/ Context\" data-short=\"Other\" style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px;padding:8px 12px;border:2px solid #555;border-radius:0;background:#fff;cursor:pointer;font-family:inherit;font-size:13px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a2e;white-space:nowrap\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"width:14px;height:14px;flex-shrink:0;background:#555\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"z1007-label\">Other \/ Context<\/span><span class=\"z1007-check\" style=\"font-size:10px\">&#10003;<\/span><\/button><button class=\"z1007-toggle active\" data-cat=\"former\" data-full=\"Surviving Airframes\" data-short=\"Survivors\" style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px;padding:8px 12px;border:2px solid #bbb;border-radius:0;background:#fff;cursor:pointer;font-family:inherit;font-size:13px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a2e;white-space:nowrap\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"width:14px;height:14px;flex-shrink:0;background:#C0C0C0\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"z1007-label\">Surviving Airframes<\/span><span class=\"z1007-check\" style=\"font-size:10px\">&#10003;<\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<div id=\"z1007-count\" style=\"text-align:left;font-size:14px;color:#666;margin-top:12px;line-height:1.7;width:100%\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">By the numbers<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">The CANT Z.1007 Alcione in figures<\/h2>\n<div class=\"cstats\">\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span class=\"n\">~560<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Built (figures vary)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span class=\"n\">3<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Engines (trimotor)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span class=\"n\">~458 km\/h<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Top speed, Z.1007bis<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span class=\"n\">0<\/span><span class=\"lb\">Complete survivors today<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"fnote\">Production totals, performance and loss figures for Italian wartime aircraft are inconsistent across sources; the numbers above are the most commonly cited and are rounded. Total production is variously given as roughly 560 or as many as around 660, and detailed loss records are incomplete. The one figure not in dispute is the last: no complete CANT Z.1007 survives anywhere in the world, which is why every image on this page is a wartime photograph rather than a shot of a preserved aircraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq\" class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Q&amp;A<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">CANT Z.1007 Alcione: your questions answered<\/h2>\n<div class=\"qa\">\n<details open>\n<summary>Can I fly in a CANT Z.1007 Alcione?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>No \u2014 and not because it is difficult to arrange, but because it is impossible. Not a single complete CANT Z.1007 survives anywhere in the world; the all-wooden airframes did not outlast the war, and there is no airworthy or static example to fly in or even sit in. If it is the experience of flying a genuine military aircraft you are after, MiGFlug does offer that in real, flyable jets \u2014 see <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">migflug.com\/flights-prices<\/a> for what is actually bookable today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Why was the Z.1007 built out of wood?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Italy had limited supplies of aluminium and other light alloys, and its drive toward economic self-sufficiency (autarky) made metal scarcer still. Wood and skilled woodworkers were plentiful, and a well-built wooden aircraft could be light and aerodynamically clean. CANT, as the aircraft arm of a Trieste shipbuilder, was especially comfortable working in timber. The trade-off was durability: timber and glue suffered badly in the heat, damp and salt air of Mediterranean and desert service, warping and weakening the airframe and creating constant maintenance problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Did the wooden structure really cause serious problems?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Yes. This is the honest core of the Alcione\u2019s story. When new, the wooden airframe was smooth, light and fast. But in service, exposed to sun, humidity and heat \u2014 and usually parked in the open \u2014 the timber warped and glued joints weakened. This threw controls out of rig, hurt serviceability and, in the worst cases, weakened the structure itself. Britain\u2019s wooden Mosquito showed wood could work brilliantly; the Alcione showed how badly it could go when climate and maintenance conditions were against it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>What does \u201cAlcione\u201d mean?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>It is Italian for \u201ckingfisher.\u201d CANT named several of its aircraft after birds, including the Z.506 Airone (heron).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>How many engines did the Z.1007 have?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Three \u2014 it was a trimotor. The definitive Z.1007bis used three Piaggio P.XI radial engines of about 1,000 horsepower each; the earlier Z.1007 used three Isotta-Fraschini inline engines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>How fast was the CANT Z.1007 Alcione?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>The Z.1007bis had a maximum speed of about 458 km\/h (285 mph) when new \u2014 competitive for a 1940 medium bomber, though weathered airframes and heavy loads reduced this in service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Was the Z.1007 a good bomber?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>It was capable and reasonably accurate for its day, fast and long-legged, and one of the three main bombers of the Regia Aeronautica alongside the SM.79 and the BR.20. Crews generally liked flying it, and the three engines gave welcome redundancy over water. But its wooden structure warped and deteriorated in the field, its defensive armament was light, and Italy\u2019s small industrial base meant it could never be produced or improved fast enough to keep pace with the war. A fair verdict is \u201ca good aircraft, hampered by its material and its circumstances\u201d \u2014 capable in 1940, outclassed by 1943 through no great fault of its own design.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Single tail or twin tail \u2014 which is correct?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Both. The original Z.1007 and early Z.1007bis had a single fin; later Z.1007bis production used a twin-tail arrangement for better stability. The two overlapped in service, so a single photograph is not a reliable guide to the mark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>How many were built, and do any survive?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Around 560 were built in total (some sources say roughly 660 \u2014 figures vary), the majority being the Z.1007bis. None survive today as complete aircraft; only photographs and a few relics remain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>How does the Z.1007 compare with the SM.79 and Fiat BR.20?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>The SM.79 was also a wooden trimotor and is the most famous, especially as a torpedo bomber. The BR.20 was a twin-engine, all-metal design \u2014 more modern in construction but less numerous. The Z.1007 sat between them: clean and fast, but sharing the SM.79\u2019s wooden vulnerability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Where did the Z.1007 see combat?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Across the Mediterranean (including raids on Malta and attacks on convoys), North Africa, the Balkans and Greece, and on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. It also flew long-range and reconnaissance missions, including sorties directed toward the Gibraltar convoy route. After the 1943 armistice, survivors served both the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force on the Allied side and the ANR of the Italian Social Republic in the north, with a few passing through German hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Who designed and built the CANT Z.1007 Alcione?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>It was designed by Filippo Zappata for CANT \u2014 Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini \u2014 the aviation subsidiary of the Trieste shipbuilder CRDA, based at Monfalcone. Zappata was one of Italy\u2019s most gifted aircraft designers and had previously created the Z.506 Airone floatplane.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>Is there a CANT Z.1007 in any museum?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>No complete aircraft survives in any museum anywhere in the world. Only photographs, technical drawings and a scattering of relics and components remain. This is a direct consequence of the all-wooden construction, which did not survive the war and the decades of neglect that followed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary>What can I fly instead, if I want the experience of a real military aircraft?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"qa-body\">\n<p>Since no Alcione survives, the closest you can get to the feeling of flying a genuine military aircraft is to book a flight in one that is still airworthy. MiGFlug offers exactly that in real fighter and jet-trainer aircraft \u2014 see <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">migflug.com\/flights-prices<\/a>. It is a very different aircraft and a very different era, but it is a real, bookable way to experience military flight rather than only reading about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Can I fly in a CANT Z.1007 Alcione?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No \u2014 and not because it is difficult to arrange, but because it is impossible. Not a single complete CANT Z.1007 survives anywhere in the world; the all-wooden airframes did not outlast the war, and there is no airworthy or static example to fly in or even sit in. If it is the experience of flying a genuine military aircraft you are after, MiGFlug does offer that in real, flyable jets \u2014 see migflug.com\/flights-prices for what is actually bookable today.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why was the Z.1007 built out of wood?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Italy had limited supplies of aluminium and other light alloys, and its drive toward economic self-sufficiency (autarky) made metal scarcer still. Wood and skilled woodworkers were plentiful, and a well-built wooden aircraft could be light and aerodynamically clean. CANT, as the aircraft arm of a Trieste shipbuilder, was especially comfortable working in timber. 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But its wooden structure warped and deteriorated in the field, its defensive armament was light, and Italy\u2019s small industrial base meant it could never be produced or improved fast enough to keep pace with the war. A fair verdict is \u201ca good aircraft, hampered by its material and its circumstances\u201d \u2014 capable in 1940, outclassed by 1943 through no great fault of its own design.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Single tail or twin tail \u2014 which is correct?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Both. The original Z.1007 and early Z.1007bis had a single fin; later Z.1007bis production used a twin-tail arrangement for better stability. 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The Z.1007 sat between them: clean and fast, but sharing the SM.79\u2019s wooden vulnerability.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Where did the Z.1007 see combat?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Across the Mediterranean (including raids on Malta and attacks on convoys), North Africa, the Balkans and Greece, and on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. It also flew long-range and reconnaissance missions, including sorties directed toward the Gibraltar convoy route. After the 1943 armistice, survivors served both the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force on the Allied side and the ANR of the Italian Social Republic in the north, with a few passing through German hands.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who designed and built the CANT Z.1007 Alcione?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"It was designed by Filippo Zappata for CANT \u2014 Cantieri Aeronautici e Navali Triestini \u2014 the aviation subsidiary of the Trieste shipbuilder CRDA, based at Monfalcone. Zappata was one of Italy\u2019s most gifted aircraft designers and had previously created the Z.506 Airone floatplane.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is there a CANT Z.1007 in any museum?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No complete aircraft survives in any museum anywhere in the world. Only photographs, technical drawings and a scattering of relics and components remain. This is a direct consequence of the all-wooden construction, which did not survive the war and the decades of neglect that followed.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What can I fly instead, if I want the experience of a real military aircraft?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Since no Alcione survives, the closest you can get to the feeling of flying a genuine military aircraft is to book a flight in one that is still airworthy. MiGFlug offers exactly that in real fighter and jet-trainer aircraft \u2014 see migflug.com\/flights-prices. It is a very different aircraft and a very different era, but it is a real, bookable way to experience military flight rather than only reading about it.\"}}]}<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec cta\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">You can\u2019t fly the Sparviero \u2014 these, you can<\/div>\n<h2>Fly a real fighter jet with MiGFlug<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">The SM.79 lives only in museums now. But the thrill of a fast military aircraft is very much bookable today \u2014 from Cold War jets to warbird-era classics, flown with professional pilots.<\/p>\n<div class=\"carou ctacar\">\n<div class=\"track\"> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/hawker-hunter-switzerland\/\"><span class=\"cn\">Hawker Hunter<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Switzerland \u2014 classic British jet fighter<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/fly-mig-29-in-russia\/\"><span class=\"cn\">MiG-29 Fulcrum<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Russia \u2014 to the edge of space<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/mig-15-fagot-czech-republic\/\"><span class=\"cn\">MiG-15 Fagot<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Czechia \u2014 the jet that shocked the West<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/l-39-albatros-italian-alps\/\"><span class=\"cn\">L-39 Albatros<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Italian Alps \u2014 jet aerobatics over the mountains<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/f104-starfighter-flight\/\"><span class=\"cn\">F-104 Starfighter<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Florida \u2014 the &#8220;missile with a man in it&#8221;<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/t-33-in-canada\/\"><span class=\"cn\">T-33 Shooting Star<\/span><span class=\"cl\">Canada \u2014 first-generation jet trainer<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"ctacard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/vampire-flight-near-london\/\"><span class=\"cn\">de Havilland Vampire<\/span><span class=\"cl\">United Kingdom \u2014 early jet-age classic<\/span><span class=\"cbook\">View this flight<\/span><\/a> <\/div>\n<div class=\"cbtns\"> <button class=\"cbtn\" aria-label=\"Scroll left\" onclick=\"this.closest('.carou').querySelector('.track').scrollBy({left:-320,behavior:'smooth'})\">\u2039<\/button> <button class=\"cbtn\" aria-label=\"Scroll right\" onclick=\"this.closest('.carou').querySelector('.track').scrollBy({left:320,behavior:'smooth'})\">\u203a<\/button> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"ctamain\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">See all fighter jet flights and prices<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec alt\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Related aircraft<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">More from the Aircraft Museum<\/h2>\n<div class=\"relgrid\"><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/savoia-marchetti-sm-79\/\"><span class=\"rt\">Savoia-Marchetti SM.79<\/span><span class=\"rd\">Italy\u2019s other wooden trimotor \u2014 the legendary Sparviero torpedo bomber, the most famous of the Regia Aeronautica\u2019s three-engine bombers.<\/span><span class=\"rl\">View the SM.79<\/span><\/a><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/fiat-br-20-cicogna\/\"><span class=\"rt\">Fiat BR.20 Cicogna<\/span><span class=\"rd\">The twin-engine, all-metal bomber that completed Italy\u2019s wartime trio \u2014 more modern in structure, less numerous in service.<\/span><span class=\"rl\">View the BR.20<\/span><\/a><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/fiat-g50-freccia\/\"><span class=\"rt\">Fiat G.50 Freccia<\/span><span class=\"rd\">Italy\u2019s early all-metal monoplane fighter \u2014 the kind of aircraft that escorted, and sometimes failed to save, bombers like the Alcione.<\/span><span class=\"rl\">View the G.50<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"kicker\">Sources<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"st\">Sources &amp; further reading<\/h2>\n<div class=\"srcgrid\">\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Reference material on Italian aircraft of the Second World War and the Regia Aeronautica\u2019s bomber force, useful for placing the Alcione in its wider context among contemporaries.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">Imperial War Museums (IWM)<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Photographs, film and records covering the Mediterranean, Malta and North African air campaigns in which the Alcione fought, from the Allied perspective.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">National Museum of the U.S. Navy<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Official wartime photographs of identified Italian aircraft, including the Z.1007bis images (80-G series) reproduced in the gallery on this page.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">San Diego Air &amp; Space Museum Archives<\/span><span class=\"sd\">A large historic aviation photograph collection on Flickr Commons, source of several Alcione images reproduced here under public-domain terms.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) historical office<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Official Italian material on the Regia Aeronautica, its aircraft types, units and wartime operations, including the post-armistice ANR and Co-Belligerent forces.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">Italian aviation historians (e.g. Gregory Alegi)<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Scholarly work on CANT, Filippo Zappata and Italy\u2019s wooden-bomber programme provides the most careful production, variant and performance figures, and is the basis for the hedged numbers used here.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">MiGFlug \u2014 Afterburner magazine<\/span><span class=\"sd\">MiGFlug\u2019s own aviation writing on warbirds, Italian aircraft and the realities of owning and flying historic military types, which informs the cost discussion on this page.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><span class=\"sh\">Wikimedia Commons<\/span><span class=\"sd\">Public-domain photographs of the CANT Z.1007 Alcione, each credited individually in the gallery captions above, form the visual record for an aircraft of which no example survives.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/cdnjs.cloudflare.com\/ajax\/libs\/d3\/7.8.5\/d3.min.js\"><\/script><script src=\"https:\/\/cdnjs.cloudflare.com\/ajax\/libs\/topojson\/3.0.2\/topojson.min.js\"><\/script><script src=\"https:\/\/cdn.jsdelivr.net\/npm\/d3-geo-projection@4\/dist\/d3-geo-projection.min.js\"><\/script><div id=\"z1007-data\" 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el=document.getElementById(\"z1007-data\");var js=decodeURIComponent(escape(atob(el.getAttribute(\"data-js\"))));var sc=document.createElement(\"script\");sc.text=js;document.body.appendChild(sc);})();<\/script><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\", \"@type\": \"FAQPage\", \"mainEntity\": [{\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Can I fly in a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"No. There is no airworthy Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 anywhere in the world \u2014 every surviving original is a static museum exhibit, and MiGFlug does not offer flights in this aircraft. However, you can fly in several genuine military jets and fighters today. MiGFlug flies aircraft such as the Hawker Hunter, MiG-29 Fulcrum, MiG-15, L-39 Albatros, F-104 Starfighter and T-33 Shooting Star. See the full list and prices at migflug.com\/flights-prices.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Why was the SM.79 called the &#8220;hunchback&#8221; (il gobbo)?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Because of the raised dorsal gondola behind the cockpit. To turn the clean airliner into a bomber, Savoia-Marchetti added a hump housing a fixed forward-firing 12.7 mm machine gun and crew stations. That bulge broke the smooth line of the fuselage and gave the aircraft a humpbacked profile, so Italian crews nicknamed it il gobbo maledetto \u2014 \\\"the damned hunchback,\\\" usually shortened to il gobbo. Its official name was far grander: Sparviero, \\\"sparrowhawk.\\\"\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"How many engines did the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 have?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Three. The classic SM.79 was a trimotor, with one radial engine in the nose and one on each wing. The SM.79-I used Alfa Romeo 126 radials of about 780 hp each; the definitive SM.79-II used more powerful Piaggio or Alfa Romeo radials of roughly 860\u20131,000 hp. Confusingly, the export SM.79B and the Romanian licence-built version were twin-engined machines with a glazed nose, so a small number of \\\"SM.79s\\\" had only two engines.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What was the SM.79&#8217;s most important role?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Torpedo bombing. As a conventional level bomber the SM.79 was competent but unremarkable. What made it famous was its role as an aerosilurante \u2014 a torpedo bomber. From 1940 the Regia Aeronautica&#8217;s specialist torpedo squadrons flew the fast, tough, low-flying Sparviero against British convoys and Royal Navy warships in the Mediterranean, pressing home wave-top attacks that won the respect of their enemies.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"How fast was the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Its top speed is usually given as around 430\u2013460 km\/h (about 267\u2013286 mph) depending on the variant and the source. That was fast for a bomber of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and \u2014 combined with its low-level handling \u2014 made it hard to intercept, especially on torpedo attacks skimming the sea.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Did the SM.79 really start as a record-breaking airliner?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Yes. The SM.79 was derived from a fast civil transport flown in 1934, and specially prepared examples set a string of internationally recognised world records for speed with payload over distance between 1935 and 1938. In August 1937 the \\\"Sorci Verdi\\\" team of SM.79s took the first three places in the Istres\u2013Damascus\u2013Paris air race. Those record flights proved the airframe had the speed and endurance that later made it a formidable bomber.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What was the SM.79&#8217;s armament?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"The classic Italian SM.79 typically carried three 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns \u2014 one fixed and firing forward in the dorsal hump, one firing aft over the tail, and one in a ventral gondola \u2014 plus a hand-held 7.7 mm lateral gun; fits varied by variant. As a bomber it could carry up to about 1,250 kg of bombs; as a torpedo bomber it carried one 450 mm aerial torpedo (it was capable of two, but one was the normal load).\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"How many Savoia-Marchetti SM.79s were built?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Roughly 1,300 to 1,350, though the exact figure is disputed between sources. Whatever the precise total, it was by a wide margin the most-produced Italian bomber of the Second World War and one of the most numerous trimotor combat aircraft ever built \u2014 the aircraft was everywhere the Regia Aeronautica fought.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Did the SM.79 fight on both sides after the 1943 armistice?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"In effect, yes. After Italy&#8217;s armistice with the Allies on 8 September 1943, torpedo units of the fascist Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR) in the German-occupied north continued attacking Allied shipping \u2014 including the Anzio beachhead in 1944 \u2014 while SM.79s of the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force in the south served the Allied cause, mostly in transport roles. The same type was thus flown by Italians on opposite sides of a divided nation.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Which countries operated the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Italy was by far the largest operator, flying the SM.79 with the Regia Aeronautica, the Aviazione Legionaria in Spain, the fascist ANR and the Co-Belligerent Air Force. It was also exported: Yugoslavia bought the SM.79K, Iraq the twin-engined SM.79B, and Romania built the twin-engined version under licence as the JRS-79B and flew it on the Eastern Front. After the war Lebanon and Spain operated surviving aircraft as transports, and some SM.79s reached Brazil for civil use.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Was the SM.79 a good aircraft?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"It depends on the role. As a level bomber it was an average medium bomber of its generation \u2014 solid but unremarkable, and, like all such aircraft, vulnerable to fighters without escort. As a torpedo bomber it was genuinely excellent: fast, rugged and low-flying, ideally suited to the aerosilurante mission, and flown with a skill and courage that even its British opponents acknowledged. It was also famously tough, able to absorb battle damage and fly home on two engines.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What does &#8220;Sparviero&#8221; mean?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"\\\"Sparviero\\\" is Italian for \\\"sparrowhawk.\\\" It followed the Regia Aeronautica&#8217;s fondness for naming aircraft after birds and predators. In practice, though, the aircraft is far better known by its unofficial nickname, il gobbo (\\\"the hunchback\\\"), earned by its distinctive humped back.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What is the difference between the SM.79 and the twin-engined SM.79B?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"The standard SM.79 is a three-engined (trimotor) aircraft with an engine in the nose and a stepped cockpit. The SM.79B was an export version that replaced this with two more powerful engines and a fully glazed \\\"greenhouse\\\" nose \u2014 so it has only two engines and looks quite different. The SM.79B line was supplied to Iraq and formed the basis of the aircraft Romania built under licence as the JRS-79B. When you see a two-engined \\\"SM.79,\\\" it is one of these export machines, not the classic Italian trimotor.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Did the SM.79 see combat before World War II?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Yes. The Sparviero&#8217;s combat debut came in the Spanish Civil War from 1937, where Italy&#8217;s Aviazione Legionaria flew it as a fast bomber for Franco&#8217;s Nationalists. Its speed made it hard to intercept, and the Spanish experience confirmed the type as the backbone of the Regia Aeronautica&#8217;s bomber force by the time Italy entered the wider war in 1940.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Are there any surviving Savoia-Marchetti SM.79s?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Only a small number survive, all as static museum exhibits. The best-known is at the Italian Air Force Museum (Museo storico dell&#8217;Aeronautica Militare) at Vigna di Valle, near Rome. One SM.79 was for many years displayed in Lebanon before being returned to Italy and restored. None of the survivors is airworthy, so the Sparviero can only be seen on the ground.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Where can I see a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 today?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"The best-known example is at the Italian Air Force Museum (Museo storico dell&#8217;Aeronautica Militare) at Vigna di Valle on Lake Bracciano, near Rome, which preserves an SM.79 Sparviero. A small number of other survivors exist, including an aircraft that spent years in Lebanon before returning to Italy. All are static exhibits \u2014 there is no flying SM.79 anywhere in the world.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What is an aerosilurante (torpedo bomber)?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"An aerosilurante is Italian for a torpedo bomber \u2014 an aircraft that attacks ships with an air-dropped torpedo rather than bombs. The Regia Aeronautica&#8217;s reparti aerosiluranti were its specialist torpedo squadrons, and the SM.79 was their principal aircraft. Attacking meant flying low and straight over the sea to release a 450 mm torpedo at close range, then breaking away through the target&#8217;s anti-aircraft fire \u2014 one of the most dangerous forms of air attack of the war.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Did the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 sink famous ships?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"SM.79 torpedo bombers damaged and sank a range of Allied merchant ships and warships in the Mediterranean between 1940 and 1943, particularly during the Malta convoy battles such as Operation Pedestal in August 1942. As always in air-sea warfare, individual claims are hard to verify and results were usually achieved as part of combined Axis assaults involving aircraft, submarines and light surface craft, so specific attributions should be treated with caution. What is not in doubt is that the aerosiluranti were a serious, sustained threat that the Royal Navy had to plan around.\"}}]}<\/script><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aircraft Museum \/ CANT Z.1007 Alcione CANT Z.1007 Alcione Italy\u2019s elegant three-engine \u201cKingfisher\u201d \u2014 a fast, all-wood medium bomber that looked the part and flew well when new, yet was slowly betrayed by the very timber it was built from. TrimotorThree radial engines ~458 km\/hTop speed (Z.1007bis) ~560 builtFigures vary All woodFuselage and wings Role [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21634,"parent":15960,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21633","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>CANT Z.1007 Alcione: Italy\u2019s All-Wood Trimotor Bomber<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The CANT Z.1007 Alcione, Italy&#039;s all-wood trimotor WWII bomber: its design, service across the Mediterranean, and why none survive today.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/pt\/aeronave\/cant-z-1007-alcione\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pt_PT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CANT Z.1007 Alcione: Italy\u2019s All-Wood Trimotor Bomber\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The CANT Z.1007 Alcione, Italy&#039;s all-wood trimotor WWII bomber: its design, service across the Mediterranean, and why none survive today.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/pt\/aeronave\/cant-z-1007-alcione\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MiGFlug\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MiGFlug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cant-z-1007-alcione-regia-aeronautica-bomber.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"879\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Tempo estimado de leitura\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"45 minutos\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/\",\"name\":\"CANT Z.1007 Alcione: Italy\u2019s All-Wood Trimotor Bomber\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2026\\/08\\/cant-z-1007-alcione-regia-aeronautica-bomber.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-21T23:36:17+00:00\",\"description\":\"The CANT Z.1007 Alcione, Italy's all-wood trimotor WWII bomber: its design, service across the Mediterranean, and why none survive today.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/aircraft\\\/cant-z-1007-alcione\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2026\\/08\\/cant-z-1007-alcione-regia-aeronautica-bomber.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2026\\/08\\/cant-z-1007-alcione-regia-aeronautica-bomber.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":879,\"caption\":\"A CANT Z.1007 bis of the Regia Aeronautica. 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