Few people know that Fiat was once a famous Italian military aviation manufacturer
The most famous were the biplane of the 1930s, the Fiat CR.32 and the Fiat CR.42
In the 1950s, the company launched the G.91 light ground attack aircraft
She was supposed to serve many European allies in NATO
but her circumstances made her serve mainly with the air forces of Italy and West Germany
and later Portugal and Greece, and even America
In the 1950s, based on the experiences of the Korean War
the NATO generals wanted an aircraft that was comparable to the US F-86 Saber
but more adaptable when operating at low altitude and a better view forward - down
Fiat Aviazione was the winner of the NBMR-1 competition, and then G.91 was born
G.91 entered service with the Italian Air Force in 1961
and with the West German Air Force by the following year
G.91 produced from 1956–1977, with a total of 756 completed
G.91 was known as "Gina".
She was designated a light tactical ground attack aircraft.
The plane had a length of 10.3 m (33 ft 10 in)
wingspan of 8.56 m (28 ft 1 in), height of 4 m (13 ft 1 in), empty weight of 3.1 tons (6,834 lb) and maximum takeoff weight of 5.5 tons (12,125 lb)
Born in the early days of the jet era, the G.91's design was heavily influenced by the F-86 Saber
G.91 was designed with a single seat, all of metal
The forward section, which was produced separate to the others before being rivetted to the centre fuselage
contains various radio navigation and communication equipment such as radio direction finder
transponder, ultra high frequency (UHF) radio
and identification friend or foe (IFF);
the nose typically contained a total of three cameras
The cockpit was positioned directly above the chin-mounted air intake for the engine
It was surrounded on three sides with steel armour plating, the glass windshield was also armoured
The pilot sat on a Martin-Baker Mk.4 ejector seat.
He sat under a two-piece glass canopy with excellent forward and side views
G.91 was equipped with a pair of low-mounted swept wings, which were swept back at extreme angles both along the leading and trailing edges
Each wing was fitted with a single hard-point on Italian models, while the German variant was fitted with two
The empennage was a combination of a single vertical tail fin and two horizontal planes, all swept back
The undercarriage was a conventional tricycle arrangement featuring two main single-wheeled landing gear legs
and a single-wheeled nose landing gear
The G.91 was powered by a Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 803 turbojet engine, producing 22.2 kN thrust
She was able to reach a top speed of 1,075 km/h (668 mph), a range of 1,150 km (710 mi),
a service ceiling of 13,100 m (43,000 ft), and rate of climb of 30 m/s (5,900 ft/min)
In terms of weapons, the central fuselage section housed the armament bay
which can accommodate up to four 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns with 300 rounds each
or alternatively up to two 30 mm DEFA cannons with 120 rounds per cannon
Other munitions included various rockets and bombs
while gun pods and external drop tanks can be installed on hardpoints fitted on the wing
G.91 can carry 4 × Nord AS-20 air-to-ground missiles; or 4 × AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles
Despite many positive reviews, the G.91 was not widely used and the number of aircraft produced was limited to 770 units
Previous orders were canceled as the Greeks and Turks preferred the more modern American F-5A Freedom Fighter
In early 1966, Germany sold 40 to Portugal
These aircraft were later used extensively during the Portuguese Colonial War in Angola and Mozambique
During early 1961, four G.91s were shipped to the United States in order to participate in a formal evaluation program for the United States Army
However, the service subsequently relinquished all fixed-wing aircraft operations to the United States Air Force
and thus the prospective G.91 procurement was not pursued.
The G.91s retired completely in 1995