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By Raul Colon 

The Cantiere Navali de Monfalcone was originally a shipbuilding company in the northeastern Italian port town of Trieste, and in the spring of 1923 decided to produce airplanes and entered the lucrative early twenties market. Therefore, they established the Cantiere Navale Treistino or CANT, for the design and development of a water-base aircraft for both civilian and military purposes. In the early 1930s the company was reorganize as the Cantieri Riuniti. The company’s first significant incursion into producing a land base aircraft was the Z.1007 medium bomber, which in addition to the Savoia-Marchetti SM 79 Sparviero, were destined to become the most important Italian bomber of the Second World War. The first prototype made its maiden flight in mid March 1937. It was powered by three Isotta-Fraschini Asso XI R2C.40 Vee piston engines, each was rated to have 825hp, driving a two blade wooden propeller on a fixed pitch type. These original propellers proved to be a detriment to the aircraft’s performance and were quickly replaced with a new three bladed Piaggio metal propeller. As well as with the propellers, the ventral radiators were eventually revised to improve cooling and to eliminate an airflow problem.

Successful evaluation of the new and improved Z.1007 lead the Italian Air Force to place an order for thirty-four pre-production-samples that retained the Asso XI engines in a revise arrangement with annular radiators. These Z.1007 aircraft were issued to the 221o squadron in the summer of 1939, being the first Italian units to have an operational Z.1007. The Italian High Air Force Command had already decided that the Z.1007, while adequate for its assigned task, really needed additional size and power to become an effective medium bomber. This lead to work on a new larger, heavier and more powerful type bomber, which was to receive the designation of Alcione. The first of eight prototypes first flew in 1938 with a power plant of three Piaggio P.XI RC 40 radial engines that generated some 1,000hp. The success of these prototypes lead to major orders from the Italians to be built by CANT and also by IMAM. The aircraft were built in nine series’, and while the first three, from the Z.1007bis Series I Alcione to the Z.1007bis Series III Alcione; retained the same type of tail as the Z.1007 with a single vertical surface. The later six series aircraft introduced a re-design tail unit, this was introduced to provide the gunners with improved rearward fields of fire and compromised a sharply dihedralled tail plane carrying endplate vertical surfaces of ovoid shape.

The revise tail unit didn’t affect the performance of the airplane nor the handling of it, and aircraft of the single or twin tailed types were often found in front line service with the same unit. Some 87 aircraft were delivered by the time of Italy’s entry into the war in June 1940 and the majority served with the 16o and 47o Stormi da Bombardamento Terreste units. They flew mainly from bases in Metropolitan Italy, Sicily, Sardina, and eventually in Greece. Although limited deployments of the Alcione were made to the southern front in Soviet Russia and the southern coast of England for operations against the British. The Z.1007ter was the final development stage of the original Z.1007 concept. It entered full production in late 1942. The Z.1007ter was powered by three Piaggio P.XIX RC 45 radial piston engines each rated at 1,175hp at a level flight of 16,405ft. Total production figures from both the Z.1007bis and the ter amounted to 526 units of which the last twenty five were delivered after the armistice of September 1943; in which Italy change sides and aligned with the Allied cause before the German occupation divided the country into two different states. The Z.1007 series was later use by the Allies as well as the Axis toward the end of the war. A few aircraft remained operational with the new Italian Air Force, in second-line tasks such as target tug and trainers, until the summer of 1948 when they finally were send out of commission.