The 3100 Horsepower Italian V-24 Air Racing BEAST - Fiat AS.6

Dive into the history and engineering behind the FIAT AS.6 engine, a groundbreaking powerplant developed for the Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72, Italy's contender for setting new speed records in the early 1930s. This video provides a detailed look at the design, development, and challenges faced by the engineers and pilots involved with the AS.6 engine and the M.C.72 aircraft. From its unique V-24 configuration to overcoming technical hurdles, learn about the innovations and perseverance that pushed the boundaries of aviation technology.
Key Highlights:
- Introduction to the FIAT AS.6 engine and its significance in aviation history.
- The design process and technical specifications of the AS.6 engine, including its V-24 layout and the development of its supercharger.
- Challenges faced during the development phase, including the backfiring issue and solutions implemented to resolve it.
- Flight trials and record-setting achievements of the Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72 powered by the AS.6 engine.
- Contributions of engineers and pilots, including the tragic losses encountered during the development and testing phases.
- Legacy of the AS.6 engine and the M.C.72 aircraft, including their impact on future aviation technologies.
Whether you're an aviation enthusiast, a history buff, or someone fascinated by engineering feats, this video offers a compelling glimpse into an extraordinary chapter of aviation history. Join us as we explore the story of the FIAT AS.6 engine and the M.C.72, an enduring symbol of innovation and ambition in the quest for speed.
Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more fascinating insights into aviation history and technology.
#FIATAS6 #AviationHistory #EngineeringMarvels #MC72 #SpeedRecords #AeronauticalEngineering

[@flightdojo]

Please consider subscribing! We're over halfway to our goal of 100k subs!

[@Tom-th1oy]

Since I do not know your name, nor do I recall hearing it in any of your videos, I am just going to address you as Mr. FdJ (obviously Mr Flight Dojo), or perhaps Dojo for short? I don’t want to insult you, so let me know.. Since you were very polite in asking, I subscribed after watching this video. That was my poor attempt at humor, for the record, I think your content is outstanding, I don’t have flair with words such as yourself but I will try to explain what I mean. I see many channels that post the same type of content or broadly similar content, that have reached that 100k followers/subscribers and frankly their videos pale in contrast to what your channel offers. And that’s for a multitude of reasons. You always seem find little gems of information, and have a gift of explaining said information without getting overly technical, yet the viewer or listener still comes away learning about the subject matter, and perhaps most importantly and why your going to reach your 100k subscriber goal, is that your viewers are never bored by the content. Like this video for instance.. How many times have I and everybody else heard about these races in the early 30’s, just to hear about the Spitfire Marine Aircraft company, and that the engines powering these Float Planes though making 1000-1250 HP and having a lifespan of roughly 20min WERE the beginnings of the engine that would be the salvation of the entire free world? It’s a great story, but it’s kinda just that.. You found this, l had never heard of the company, the V-12, and certainly not the V-24 that actually worked, and worked well! Great stuff, keep up the good work Dojo..

[@RectalRooter]

@flightdojo Where oh where Has my little Flight Dojo gone where oh where can he be

[@muskepticsometimes9133]

it is insane a plane flew that fast, at sea level, WITH FLOATS, with 30's technology. that engine is a bad boy !

[@kevatut23]

As always, thanks so much for this. As a fifty year builder of Italian comp engines, this one was fascinating. Just the lines on the AS.6 are pure art. And twelve stacks per side? Wild.

[@flightdojo]

Your welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

I have a soft spot for engines like this, and I absolutely agree with that last comment, if someone had been willing to put make that investment into making one of these early hyper engines viable early on our image of the skies of WW2 would have been changed forever.

[@danhubert-hx4ss]

Actually Italy tried and failed. Thus they bought a Gnome-Rhone licence as a stop-gap. Why not DB? Well, until the Brenner meeting Italy saw Germany as a threat seeing Adolf`s declaration that all German speakers should be united in one country. And Italy had quite a few in Alto Adige they conquered from Austro-Hungary in WWI.

[@euromazing1]

If you haven’t had a chance..Studio Ghibli does a great animated movie “Porco Rosso” featuring these plane. The attention to detail is amazing in it!

[@snoofayy6150]

That scene was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this thumbnail!

[@robertshields2066]

Fit nicely in my Mini, one engine in front, the other in the back in the boot, with a little work. Can use the original 850 motor as a starter motor with a few modifications.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

An experimental twin Mini crashed spectacularly on a motorway in the 1960s when the rear ‘front subframe’s’ locked steering arms failed sending a back wheel wildly out of control.

[@butchs.4239]

If I remember correctly, John Cooper himself was testing the twin Mini when it broke and nearly killed himself in the resulting crash.

[@guyk2260]

Nice work again Flight Dojo , you're spoiling us with all these new uploads .

[@flightdojo]

Trying to make up for lost time!

[@guyk2260]

Appreciated ! @@flightdojo

[@johnwiles4391]

Wow! I had never heard of this engine. The 'two-spool' design is very cool!

[@christopherdean1326]

So glad to see this! I have a picture of one of these engines in one of my books, but I have never seen even the slightest mention of them anywhere else! I was beginning to wonder if they had just made it up for the book. Quite relieved to find it did actually exist, always loved big, multi-cylinder engines.

[@steveshoemaker6347]

AMAZING speed for that time period......Thanks Flight Dojo.... Old F-4 2 Shoe🇺🇸

[@piperpa4272]

I only recently found your channel, I like what I've seen so far and I am slowly working my way through your back catalog.

[@coffebanana8515]

Please make longer videos. Really like the content

[@flightdojo]

I’d love to. A big project is coming up soon

[@ToreDL87]

Longer videos = Less videos. He's not stating anything that isn't publicly available, so it's better to do shorter video with the general gist. At least then people know enough that if they're interested > They can read up more on it, and if they aren't interested = Go and eat cake.

[@gvii]

That is a big dang motor in a teeny tiny little airframe. But awesome to see someone is out there keeping the motor alive.

[@higgydufrane]

I love being able to see all the pictures you provided. That makes such a difference. Edit: if only they could have had constant-speed propellers.

[@Bayside_Metalcraft_Ltd_NZ]

As always, very well researched, and very well presented.

[@cramersclassics]

Amazing video from long ago. Well done!

[@K-Effect]

This is so awesome, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about what these guys were doing

[@MrBarrySell]

Imagine what one could do with that hardware today combined with digital controls and superior super chargers.

[@flightdojo]

I’d like to do a video on modern Reno teams but Reno ended and I doubt some of the teams would be wiling to discuss their secrets!

[@dadyo63]

Wow ,beatifull design for the time ,awsum to see the engine running 😊

[@danhubert-hx4ss]

Excellent vid, subbed.

[@blacklion79]

So beautiful plane!

[@tangosierra911]

Great documentary! ☀️ Please note that the absolute record for a piston-engined airplane was set on April 26th, 1939 with an ME209 at 469 miles or 755 km/h. In fact, it was only ever broken 3 decades later in 1969 by a Bearcat Conquest 1 🏆!

[@exharkhun5605]

I'm a great believer in the concept of doing more with more.

[@paoloviti6156]

The M.C. 72 was powered with the formidable Fiat AS. 6 engine often referred as a tandem engine by uniting two engines but reading Italian books here and there I never saw the word "tandem". In practice was a very good solution by keeping a narrow fuselage and permitting a double shaft in order to have contra-rotatng propellers eliminating torque. Unfortunately it suffered serious backfires possibly leading to the death of two pilots. Despite calling in an expert in fuel from Rolls-Royce and did partially solved issues but never achieved full power for various reasons. I do wonder if Italians had installed fuel injection like the Germans as it would solved this problem aside added complications and weight. Good job 👍👍👍

[@monostripeexplosiveexplora2374]

that is pretty cool

[@onazram1]

Imagine how cool this engine would look with a row of Weber IDA's or side draft DCOE's....

[@thamesmud]

Good video. The Reno race planes also don't have dirty great floats to drag through the air.

[@johndaltrocanto]

Dude I was watching the db605 video literally thinking:” I wish they made a video about the as.6”

[@franzliszt4257]

Messerschmidt set the all time speed record in 1939 at 469 mph that stood for 30 years until the modified Grumman Bearcat took it in 1969 (fastest piston engine aircraft ever). The ME209 Daimler Benz V12 made about 2400 hp, due to cooling issues, for a very short time but long enough for the record flight,

[@Flies2FLL]

Watch at 4:47: This is a twin engine design! The rear engine starts first and the front propellor starts spinning; Then the front engine starts causing the rear prop to turn; there is no connection between the two V12's so this is actually a twin, not a single.

[@abowlofpetunias7488]

I have a question, what kind of dynos were used to measure all this power? Dynos capable of >1000 hp are rare today!

[@steffen19k]

Usually, it's calculated, and then the Dyno results are compared against the calculated numbers to the limits of the Dyno.

[@TL-angzarr]

They had water brake dynos by the 20's . Dynos had started in the early 1800's as a way to measure the power of horses. There were various types around, some were inertial some were absorption but they were incredibly dissimilar to what we have today. By the way sort of mickey mouse dyno shops do you have near you? Even the little superflow dynos will go up to 1500hp, with some going to 4000. I wouldn't trust a dyno shop that had a rickety old dyno that couldn't go over 1k. At minimum that means it's so old their data collection systems will lacking.

[@55Reever]

Left out some big names, Dago Red, Rare Bear and Strega.

[@tonybony5805]

Dago 😅

[@MuitoDaora]

Music over the sound of engine? Really?!

[@danmcdonald9117]

Oh yeah!

[@oxcart4172]

Simebody got one running again just a few months ago!

[@reverseuniverse2559]

No wonder they were ahead in F1 🏎️ for so long

[@tonybony5805]

Excuse my ignorance on Schneider cup aircraft but who came up with the spitfire style design first Supermarine or Macchi ?

[@pulsorohr]

Very nice video as always! But please answer me one question: There is a twin V12 running without exhaust. Why do you cover that sound with music? It makes me going nuts. Not just in your videos, but also in others. Let the pure sound speak. Best Regards Stefan

[@flightdojo]

Hey Stefan, the audio in my clip was not good and the engine sound was distorted and clipping. I put music over it to mask the distorted audio.

[@FiveCentsPlease]

@pulsorohr The original video of the engine runing is also on KZbin.

[@stevie-ray2020]

I noticed that on many of the more powerful Fiat engines used for record attempts, exhaust-pipes were either very short or none-existent, so what effect (+ve or -ve) did that have on engine performance?

[@erikwellerweller8623]

yeahhh baby ! nothing exceeds like excess

[@datvik7187]

To think that italy could have had their own DO-335, years before Germany. 😮😮😮

[@jamesdeath3477]

Only recently saw the video where they had the motor running last year. I bet that took some doing.

[@Knot_Sean]

I bet this engine would have had been great for an Italian “fast bomber”. Having two nacelles but 4 engines and the counter props could decrease drag, Sadly mechanical problems definitely would have plagued this beast even if it was refined or mass produced.

[@loonatticat]

@0:42 WHY OH WHY do we hear music instead of 24 cylinder combustion ?!?

[@kidmohair8151]

in answer to the last question, I would guess that any aircraft that employed this engine or any other like it, would be more or less unflyable in any but the most experienced and highly trained hands.

[@matteohetzy7599]

Thanks for the video, it's a pity the pronunciations of the names have ... ”reliability issues”. Macchi is pronounced with hard Cs, (imagine it was written "Makki”). And the pilot Agello it's pronounced closer to "A jello" this would improve pronunciation a lot

[@wktodd]

So is it really one engine or two?

[@scotfield3950]

I love Italian engineering not just look but sound sexy

[@pklimbic]

The drive shaft from the rear engine drove the front propeller and went through the outer drive shaft from the front engine, which drove the rear propeller. The other way round it wouldn‘t work. No?

[@mfrsr]

depends if the prop was direct drive to the shaft or geared at the hub itself I reckon - ie: whether the rear engine's shaft was one piece it's entire length or multiple sections. Italian designs always seem to involve some incredibly overly-complex critical mechanism that's borderline black magic to get to function correctly....

[@scottbruner9266]

….”lasting a minute before reliability issues kicked in. Something we can relate to”. 😂

[@anachronisticon]

More to the point, surely that length of engine would have seriously compromised pilot visibility in combat?

[@emanemanrus5835]

pretty much

[@johnmortison5763]

I've always wondered why these speed record planes were on floats. The parasitic drag from those things had to be a major issue. Were there no runways that could handle these planes?

[@flightdojo]

At the time the speed record necessitated floats as part of the rules

[@emanemanrus5835]

I think since they used fixed pitch propellers, the prop blades were set to the ground to the max pitch allowable for the max design speed. So the take off run resulted in a too much long distance, hence taking off from a lake solved that problem (until variable pitch props went more common).

[@gian.4388]

​@@emanemanrus5835 this is pretty much it

[@stevenborham1584]

Just think Macchi could have had a Do-335, or SAAB J21 like fighter in the skies long before the Germans, had they capitalised on the Fiat AS.6

[@ryanburciaga9402]

Can we get a griffon video

[@peceed]

All without jet exhaust stacks!

[@r.guerreiro140]

If they were to go back to the V12 configuration, it would still be possible to get more than 1400 hp.

[@neutronalchemist3241]

It also used special fuel. Maybe it could have done it with the 100/130 octane fuel the allies used during the war, but the axis was mostly stuck with 87 octane fuel. To give a measure, the Merlin, that produced over 1700 hp on 100/130 octane fuel, never produced more than 1100 hp on 87 octane.

[@gian.4388]

In the early 30s the fascist regime, in their immense wisdom, basically stopped development of liquid cooled inline engines in favor of air cooled radials, as they believed them to be better overall By 1939 they had realised what a moronic decision that was, so they asked for development of liquid cooled engines to restart asap Taking everything they had learned from the development of the AS6 V24 engine, FIAT developed the AS8 V16 engine, which was meant to power the CMASA CS15 racer and brake the absolute speed record (at that point held by the Me-209) By the early 40s they had the engine ready and had already tested it by running it for 100 consecutive hours without any major issues (not bad considering the AS6 was only tested for a maximum of 60 consecutive *minutes* ) It produced around 2000/2250 hp, for a short time it could even reach 2500 hp But by then the regime wanted military aircrafts for the war, so the AS8 was abandoned and the CS15 was never built It would be used as base, at least initially, for the A.38 engine, later changed to an inverted V configuration, meant to power the G.55 and CMASA CS38 (the latter would never even be built) While they were working on the A.38, they also came up with two other, even more powerful engine designs, like the A.40 X24 engine and the A.44 H32 engine But at that point it was too late and the italian air ministry was already looking at the german DB engines, which were already in mass production and fairly reliable, engines which ended up powering italy's series 5 fighters till the end of the war

[@r.guerreiro140]

@@gian.4388 thank you for the info

[@Flies2FLL]

1. That crankshaft must have been very beefy. 2. That brings up how much this engine must have weighed! This is an airplane folks, not an 18 wheel heavy road truck~!

[@haveraygunwilltravel]

Sound of engine covered by music.

[@simon-c2y]

Cooling problems weren't that significant in the development. In contrast to later efforts in running v12s as seperate engines laid out one before one after in a straight line. I guess these fragile aircraft used the wings as radiators. Or, perhaps joining the engine blocks somehow mitigated the cooling problem...

[@flightdojo]

Skin cooling was common. I’m sure the mc72 used it to keep the drag down. I’d have to go check!

[@simon-c2y]

Or they were just very short flights. But later similar wartime efforts all reported cooling issues.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

More air density at very low altitude, more air molecules to absorb heat.

[@butchs.4239]

@@flightdojo The shiny upper surfaces of the floats are the radiators.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

To minimise transfer of heat into wall, the flame front needs to reach all walls at the same time. I guess that a long stroke works better. How do squish areas work? Can they have teeth/scissors around them and shot vortex ring states? For a pancake flame volume, I imagine like 11 squish shooters. Or there could be small pistons all around who inhale slowly through a perfectly round nozzle and then shoot. Need some space between cyclinders. Individual heads like on a radial engine or W16. So there is also space for small intake valves to fill the space between the two main valves in a radial Hemi roof. Spark plug center in space. Some toroidal swirl to blow the fireball away from the roof? Inverted engine and convection?

[@hardwaylearner]

It *should* fit in a Miata

[@RealOlawo]

As the engine does not chare one crancshaft and also not one drive shaft I think it is not fair to call it a V24 it is more 2 x V12 bolted together and sharing one supercharger.

[@EternallyThankful-os6pz]

I am still wondering WHY no one in the modern day has built a race plane out of this engine ?!?! The speed would HAVE to be a record...if this thing hit 440mph with those huge , drag inducing floats...it seems that 500mph plus would be possible if put into a modern P-51 bodied / modified plane !?!?!?!?!

[@jamesshoemaker684]

Apparently these had to be seaplanes?. Taking the pontoons off would increase the speed more than anything.

[@ekspatriat]

Ironically the British Scneider engine morped into the Merlin...THAT'S the way to do it.

[@craigpennington1251]

Never could figure out why people always put the operating controls at the Back of the engine when operating it on a stand. With props in place, it throws all the fumes in your face, not to mention hot oil & fuel. 1st engine shown needs exhaust pipes desperately.

[@Flies2FLL]

Twin V12's coupled: I'd make them fire together. Twin V8's coupled: I'd put them 45 degrees off, and that is exactly how production V16's have fired. A V16 sounds like a very angry V8: ::ROwww Rowww::. A V24 is just going to sound like an inline 6 with a good exhaust. If they wanted more cylinders they should have gone with an H24 design, like the engine in the Hawker Tempest.

[@bimmjim]

50 liters. Why not?

[@Slaktrax]

How come the Supermarine S6B won the Schneider Trophy with between 2,300 and 2,500 hp from the 36.7 litre Rolls Royce 'R' V12, if this V24 was capable of 3,100 hp? This M.C. 72 should have walked away with the trophy, if that were the case.

[@paulm749]

Bet on Italians who want to go really, really fast. They usually find a way. Macchi... Ferrari... Ducati...

[@tonybony5805]

Espresso si

[@ivortoad]

The Supermario Spitfiori

[@user-kh2is7xf1t]

Fiat build airplane before?😮

[@b.griffin317]

440mph in a floatplane. smh

[@traumgeist]

You not a build a engine dat a way!

[@RamblerMan68]

Hahahaa...I hope you're talking with your hands!

[@lebaillidessavoies3889]

They were not that far from speed of sound with this thing....

[@Nivola1953]

Damn it, you’re doing a documentary and don’t even bother to learn how to pronounce Macchi the Italian way! Ch in Italian is like a k, therefore last syllables of macchi is pronounced like key, not like chip! Anyway the real deal, the MC 72 speed record holder plane, is on display at MusAM in Vigna d Valle, close to Rome.

[@marktmarkt2.0]

Ok now put it in a miata

[@Franklin-pc3xd]

Is this Flight Dojo guy aka the same gent that was thinking of buying and building a kit plane? If so, allow me to be of assistance by stressing my #1 Universal Rule of Life. If you can fly it, fu@k it or float it then only borrow, steal or rent it but never buy it....and never, ever, build it.