Ambrosini SS.4
In the SAI Ambrosini SS4 (also known as Ambrosini SS4 or Progetto Canard ) is the prototype of an interceptor of the Italian company SAI Ambrosini. The first flight took place in 1939. Despite promising flight characteristics of the development for a rotor failure and subsequent landing accident in 1942 has been set.
History
Already in 1935, had an engineer Sergio Stefanutti at SAI Ambrosini started to construct aircraft canard - type ( Canard ). In 1935 he had a wooden motor sailer called SS2 (SAI Stefanutti model 2) and 1937, the two-seater test pattern SS3 Anitra ( duck) with a small two-cylinder engine CNA IIbis with 40 hp tested successfully. Because of the weak engine, the services were indeed low, the expectations placed as a canard in the interpretation but was confirmed by the flight characteristics.
Then arose from the year 1938, SS4, which started in the form of the prototype with a pusher propeller in May 1939 in Castiglione del Lago for its maiden flight. This first machine was the military code of the Regia Aeronautica " MM.387 ". The extensive test flights in 1940 and 1941 confirmed the good characteristics and good controllability. As armament was a 30 mm gun for the SS4 (which was still mounted as a dummy in the prototype ), and two 20 mm machine guns of moulting in the fuselage nose. However, the prototype crashed due to an emergency landing due to engine damage in 1942, so that the development has not been then.