Pomilio PE

The Pomilio PE was a First World War Italian armed reconnaissance biplane designed and built by the Pomilio brothers. It was developed from the earlier Pomilio PC and PD.

Development
The Pomilio brothers first armed reconnaissance biplane was the Pomilio PC which appeared in 1917. It was a conventional biplane of mixed construction with a fixed tailskid landing gear. It had two open cockpits in tandem and was powered by a nose-mounted 260 hp (194 kW) Fiat A.12 engine. It first entered service in 1917 and was found to dangerously unstable which led to an improved design the Pomilio PD. The PD had a revised engine cowling and to help with the stability a ventral fin. Production of both the PC and PD was 545 aircraft, mainly PDs.

A further improvement was the Pomilio PE which had a re-designed tail unit with an increase in area of both the fin and tailplane. It was also fitted with a more powerful variant of the Fiat A.12. Changes were made throughout the production run of 1071 aircraft with later aircraft fitted with synchronized forward-firing machine-guns as well as observer's Lewis machine gun.

Variants

 * Pomilio PC
 * Initial production variant


 * Pomilio PD
 * Modified production variant with ventral fin, 575 PC and PDs built.


 * Pomilio PE
 * Improved production variant with new tail unit and more powerful engine, 1071 built.

Operators

 * Regia Aeronautica
 * Regia Aeronautica