The Ansaldo SVA was a saga of Italian reconnaissance airplanes designed and employed during The Great War and employed also in many other post-war conflicts.
There were various versions:
- SVA1: Later identification of the SV prototype
- SVA2: Pre-production series of the SVA.
- SVA3: Interceptor version. Powered by an SPA 6A engine. Featured one upper-wing mounted fiat machine-gun. AKA 'SVA Ridotto'
- SVA4: Reconnaissance version. Featuring one Vickers Machine gun on the left side and two photo-cameras.
- SVA.5: Recon-Bombing version. Two side mounted frontal Vickers Machine guns and equipped with bomb racks under the fuselage. Some versions were tested with early radio equipment.
- SVA.6: Purely reconnaissance version of the SVA.5. One wing-mounted Fiat machine gun. Equipped with two cameras.
- SVA.7: Recon/bomber of the SVA.6. Racks for 6 bombs under the fuselage.
- SVA.8: AKA Ansaldo A.201/A.202 Prototype of an armoured ground attack variant. It was powered by an Isotta-Fraschini engine. It was written off from inventory in May 1923.
- SVA.9: Two-Seat trainer of the SVA.5. One of them was modified in order to perform the flight over Vienna with the cockpit of the pilot and the observer reverted.
- SVA.10: Two-seat Reconnaissance version.
- ISVA/SVA Am: Floatplane fighter version (ISVA) or floatplane observation airplane (Am), made on request of the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy)
- SVA AP: AP stands for 'Ansaldo Postale' which was just a regular SVA.5 powered by an V6 Isotta-Fraschini employed as a postal airplane.
Now the users covered in this post are:
- Argentina: Both Ansaldo SVA.5 and SVA.10 were employed by the Argentinean Servicio Aeronáutico del Ejército (Army Aeronautical Service) both in their first two fighter squadrons and their military flying schools. One SVA.5 became very famous after crossing the Andes twice, piloted by the Captain Parodi.
- Bolivia: Apparently some of them were used by the Bolivian Cuerpo de Aviación (Aviation Corps). We couldn't find graphical evidence so the drawing should be considered as speculative. UPDATE: The only Ansaldo SVA (most probably a SVA.5) to flight over Bolivia was the one belonging to Count Aldo Barbaro, one of South America's aviation pioneers. He flew in many occasions from lake Titicaca in Peru, to the city of La Paz, in Bolivia achieving various records within South American flights and was also the first South American aviator to reach 4000m high on a flight from Arequipa, in Peru to Oruro, in Bolivia. During one of those flights that took place on July 1923, his aircraft malfunctioned while he was approaching La Paz and his plane crashed killing him on the spot. Nowadays Count Aldo Barbaro is a hero both for Peru and Bolivia.
It seems that in May 1920 an Italian officer, named Evaristo Ruffo, assigned to the military mission in Argentina, crossed the Argentino-Bolivian border to offer the Bolivian government five SVA.5 (among other many aircraft) in order to set-up an aviation school. However the deal couldn't be closed so the aircraft weren't delivered.
Thanks to our follower Bluewarrior for giving us the information and providing us with photos. - Brazil: It seems that some SVA were used by the Brazilian navy aeronautical service. As we couldn't information about these airplanes under Brazilian command, it's considered as speculative both the colours and the sub-model.
- Chile: The Italian colony in Chile bought an airplane and, when performing a demonstration flight, it crashed off the shore of Valparaiso in 1924.
- Ecuador: During 1921 Italy sent a military mission to Ecuador in order to form new pilots there. They bought together with them, an Ansaldo SVA.10, a Macchi M.18 a SAML S2 and an Aviatik D.I. The Ecuadorian aviation school opened up on July 1922.
- Georgia: During the Russian civil war, the Soviet Red Army invaded Georgia in 1921. It is known that the Georgians had a tiny air corps comprissed of some Sopwith Camel and some other SVA.10. Basing on how the Camel looked like, we have drawn the SVA.10, speculating of course.
- Latvia: The Latvian aviation corps had some SVA.10 in active during 1924 when one of them was sent for four days to the Estonian capital of Tallinn as a diplomatic action in order to improve relations between both countries.
1. The comments and photos left by our follower, Bluewarrior. Thanks to him.
2. http://aviationpioneers.blogspot.com/2010/05/count-aldo-barbaro.html
Interesting the ilustration about the bolivian Ansaldo, but the bolivian aviation, never use any Ansaldo, the only one ansaldo that´s arrive to Bolivia came from Perú, piloted by the Count Aldo Barbaro Cornaro, who had a crash landing when arrives to La Paz, in october of 1922, he repair the plane and when try to complete his raid La Paz-Oruro, seconds after the take off the plane crashed killing the pilot, I´m trying now to find exactly if his plane was an Ansaldo S.V.A 5 or 9.
ReplyDeleteSame as the other post, could you quote your sources please? We have found that Bolivia used Ansaldo SVA (most probably SVA 5), however we left the colour configuration to speculation due to the lack of graphical evidence.
ReplyDelete"La República", "La Reforma", "El Diario"... and many others newspapers from La Paz Bolivia, I´m bolivian, and actually I´m searching more data about the Count Cornaro, you can search about a bolivian air force historian friend Ramiro Molina Alanes. I has confirm that the Ansaldo was a S.V.A. 5, Cornaro arrives to Lima-Perú with a Gio Ansaldo & C. represents to sell airplanes in Perú.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any pic of that Ansaldo?
ReplyDeleteYes, from the newspapers, how I can send you??
ReplyDeleteUpload the photo to any image hosting site like... Google photos, Imgur, 666k.com... and post the link here.
ReplyDeleteBTW, thank you. We'll re-paint the Bolivian Ansaldo.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehttps://imgur.com/Z88lWZf
ReplyDeletehttps://imgur.com/6hdSO7F
https://imgur.com/R0n4VAM
These pictures are from "La República" newspaper, shows the airplane before his first attempt to fly to Oruro, Cornaro is possing in front of his plane, the other picture where the engine is visible, is at the hangar of El Alto airbase reparing the engine after the a fail in his attempt to fly to Oruro, and the full page is the fatal crash of Cornaro june 21 of 1923. These pictures shows the only one Ansaldo that´s arrives to Bolivia, it never belonged to the Army Air Corp, were Cornaro´s property, he was buried in Bolivia,
almost 10,000 people attended his funeral. Hope this works for you, at anything I´can help only ask.
I almost forget, after his crash landing al the El Alto Airbase, in 1922, the tail, landing gear, an two wings were damaged, so were ordered to Perú the new spares parts, so all the vertical and the rudder are in one color, I think is natural coated fabric color, and the cockade is at italian colors, I believed that were painted in the peruvian colors, but the Ansaldos brougt by the italians to Peru were in their original markings.
They're excellent! Thank you very much!
DeleteJust one question. A roundel can be seen in the second picture. Do you know by chance if that was the red-white Peruvian roundel?
By the way... we'll change the drawing as soon as possible.
DeleteWe've just updated the post. Thanks again Bluewarrior!
DeleteHi, found some thing that may interest you, in may 1920 came from Argentina an officer of the military italian mission to offer to the bolivian goverment many airplanes to install the avuation school, including 5 SVA, his name were Evaristo Ruffo. But the business never take conclusion how now we see.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it's interesting. We're adding it to the post.
Delete