Breda Ba-65

  Breda 65 at the factory, before her delivery to Chile. The pilot is Captain Enrique Flores.

Author: Alvaro Romero Pérez.

The history of this little known aircraft starts on 1935, when its prototype mades her maiden flight. It was designed as a multipurpose aircraft: fighter, light bomber, reconaisance and attack. The production orders were placed on 1936, to be powered by Gnome-Rhone K-14 engines of 700 HP. It was a modern aircraft for its day, having several refinements, like retractable undercarriage, metal airscrew of variable pitch and all-metal construction.

Breda N° 5They entered combat during the Spanish Civil war, but her combat debut was not very sucessful. It was used by the italian Air Force at North Africa againts the british and also at the Balkans. A total of 154 of these planes were lost in combat by the italians, from a total production until 1939 of 220 units. Besides Italy and Chile, the Breda Ba-65 was used by Spain, Hungary, Paraguay, Iraq and Portugal.

She was armed with two machineguns of 7 mm plus two of 12 mm., all wing mounted. These guns were made by Madsen, from Denmark. The two seat version also had a small dorsal turret, that could be rotated 360°, with another 7 mm machine gun. Two hundred kilos of bombs could be carried on a small ventral bay. One of these turrets is currently being restored at Santiago's Aeronautics Museum.

FACH Service:

Instruments panel. Pillán magazine photo.Starting on 1937, the FACH started to purchase aircrafts produced by Axis countries: Germany and Italy, to modernise her aging fleet. On Germany were purchased the Focke-Wulf Fw-44 Stieglitz primary trainers, the Junkers Ju-86 bombers and the Arado Ar-95 A/B torpedo attack planes. From Italy arrived the Nardi 305FN fighter trainers and the Breda Ba 65 attack aircraft. Twenty Breda were purchased on a single batch, the FACH intentions were that this plane was to form the backbone of her attack force during the forties.

The Breda, seventeen were of the single-seat version and three were Ba 65 bis two-seaters, arrived to Chile on December 14th 1938 and were destined to the Air Group N° 4, based at El Bosque. They received the serials 1 through 20. The aircraft sold to Chile were powered with a Piaggio PXI-C40 engine of 900 HP, that could be increased to 1000 HP with the so-called "piú cento" system that provided more power during emergencies for just a few seconds.

Being one of the first all-metal monoplanes to be used by FACH, there were initial problems and it was not well received by the chilean pilots. The first chilean pilot to train on the new type, at Breda's factory in Italia, was Captain (later Colonel) Enrique Flores Alvarez..

Captain  Enrique Flores at Italy, during his training at Breda.During 1939 several accidents were suffered by the Bredas, like the one that happened to the factory test pilot Mr. Magaldi, who had the engine seized when using the "piú cento", forcing him to do an emergency landing on a farm at La Cisterna. A second accident happened to Lieutnant José Traub, during the preparations for the military parade of 1939, taking off in close formation he stalled when crossed the leader's wake. The airplane fliped over over the Airfield falling down on flames. Another accident happened to Captain Hernán López Angulo, when his Breda N° 5 caught fire in mid air, forcing him to land on a field at Maipú, saving his life but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair. Another pilot, 2nd Lieutnant Ramón Ortiz, was killed when his Breda's engine failed and his plane stalled when he was trying to return to the airfield. Finally, the Breda N° 8 had an undercarriage failure during landing.

This was a plane with many operative problems, and her many accidents increased the dislike felt by her pilots. When Italy entered the Second World War the spares flow ceased, making it very dificult to be kept in airworthy condition. The many accidents prompted the nickname "Ataúdes Volantes" (flying coffins). The politic rage that arised after these accidents prompted the FACH to ground the type on November 1939, after less than 11 months of service. On 1941, the Air Group N° 4 retired them from the flight line, but they were kept in storage while negotiations were made with Italy to try to exchange them for Fiat CR-32 biplanes, but these plans never cristalized.

Because of all these dificulties, Chile had to face the period 1940-46 with no monoplane fighters on her Order of Battle, only with the weak North American NA-44. Finally, the arrival to Chile of the Republic P-47 restored our fighter arm.

English translation and editing by Eduardo Ahumada M.


Bibliography:


Photographs:

Markings of Group N° 4 used on the Breda. FACH photo.Markings of Air Group N° 4 used on the Breda fighters on 1939. FACH magazine photo.


Markings:

Breda N° 5 in 1939. Pillán magazine drawing.These planes used natural metal finish, vertical tail and rudder in dark blue, national shield on both wing undersurfaces. Serial number in black. Drawing from Pillán magazine.

Three view of the Breda. Drawing by  Erich Eschmann C.Three view drawing of the Breda. Drawing by Erich Eschmann C.


Interesting links about this Aircraft:

History of the Breda Ba-65 - By Jon Guttman


Scale Kits:

This is the only kit of the Breda that I have seen, but I believe that there is another vacuform kit also. This is a model of the single seat version and costs around US$ 14, pretty expensive for such a small kit. If you want to purchase it, click here.

Regarding this scale kit, the reader Frits Snijder, from the Netherlands, points out that the chilean Breda used a Piaggio P.XI engine, instead of the Issota Fraschini K.14 used on the italian Bredas. Unfortunately, the Azur kit represents the italian type, with K.14 engine, and the differences in shape is great, as can be seen on these drawings that Frits sent me, so a great deal of conversion is required in order to complete the chilean type.

Issota K.14 engine (italian) Piaggio P.XI engine (chilean)

Books:

Frits also tells me about the existence of this small monography about this aircraft, with both english and italian text, published on 1997. It has many photographs, line drawings and colour schema. It even has a brief section on the chilean Breda. You can purchase it at www.greatmodels.com


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