Design and Development
In 1931, Italian engineer Secondo Campini submitted a report on the potential of jet propulsion to the Regia Aeronautica, and the following year, demonstrated a jet-powered boat in Venice. In 1934, the Regia Aeronautica granted approval for the development of a jet aircraft to demonstrate the principle.
As designed by Campini, the aircraft did not have a jet engine in the sense that we know them today. Rather, a conventional 900 hp (670 kW) Isotta Fraschini L.121 RC.40 12-cylinder liquid-cooled piston engine was used to drive a compressor, which forced air into a combustion chamber where it was mixed with fuel and ignited. The exhaust produced by this combustion was to drive the aircraft forward. Campini called this configuration a "thermojet," but the term "motorjet" is in common usage today for this arrangement since thermojet is now used to refer to a particular type of pulsejet (an unrelated form of jet engine). It has also been described as a ducted fan.
The Italian aircraft designer Luigi Stipa (1900–1992) contended that his Stipa-Caproni experimental aircraft, a ducted-fan design of 1932, was the first aircraft to employ what he called an "intubed propeller" -- essentially the motorjet principle—and that he therefore deserves the credit for the invention of the jet engine. The Caproni-Campini N.1 did employ many of the principles first tested in the Stipa-Caproni aircraft, albeit in a more advanced form.
Read more about this topic: Caproni Campini N.1
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