The Ansaldo A.1 "Balilla" (which named after a Genoan folk hero) was an Italian fighter locally produced in Italy during the closing stages of the World War I.
The A.1 was the result from Ansaldo company to create a true fighter, given that the SVA proved to be not suitable for that role. The Ansaldo's designer Giuseppe Brezzi revised the design of the SVA in order to increase the size of the lower wing and redesigned the interplane strut configuration. Those two redesignments created more drag but at the same time the stiffness of the wing structure was increased and the stress in the airframe was reduced. It was powered by a powered-up version of the SVA engine, the SPA 6A piston engine and a safety system to jettison the fuel tank through a ventral hatch was installed.
The first prototype was completed in July 1917 but it wasn't accepted in the Corpo Aeronautico Militare until December. That reluctance to accept it was because the test pilots weren't enthusiastic when evaluating and, even if they found it to be better than the SVA.5, the type still wasn't as maneouvrable as the French fighter of those years. That's why the prototype was furtherly modified, in order to enlarge the wings, the rudder and to increase slightly the power of the engine. Apparently that elevated the modified prototype to Corpo Aeronautico Militare standards and it was accepted, named Ansaldo A.1 bis. It was assigned in the 91ª Squadriglia to be evaluated.
The reports about its' performance were fixed, while some of them praised its' high speed, other deemed it difficult to manoeuvre and in general to control it. However as the Italian fighter pool was becoming obsolete, it was ordered anyway.
The first machine of the first 100 batch entered in service in July 1918 and most of them were assigned to second line duties performing home defense roles, as the first line fighters were performed by the better and much modern SPAD S.XIII. Before the war ended it only scored one aerial victory against an Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance airplane, and it was during those months that Ansaldo decided to promote the airplane, including the decission of nicknaming it as "Balilla", flying demonstration flights in the major Italian cities and gifting one machine to the Italian aviator Antonio Locatelli in order to perform stunts with it. However it backfired when Locatelli had to make a forced landing behind Austro-Hungarian lines due to a mechanical failure and was taken prisoner. Despite that negative propaganda, the Corpo Aeronautico Militare ordered another 100 of them to be produced, in order to be delivered before the end of the war and, at the date of the armistice, 186 were in service, of which 47 were used for training duties and the remainder were put into storage.
After the war, an Italian aviators association, the Cooperativa Nazionale Aeronautica (CNA) bought 40 of them together with other SVA, Hanriot HD.1, Fokker E.V and some unespecified Aviatik airplanes in March 1921.
When the Corpo Aeronautico was disbanded and replaced by the Regia Aeronautica in 1925, the Balilla was assigned to training duties, together with other outdated Aviatik and SVAs which were operated by the CNA, which in practice was a disguised pilot training association.
The CNA trained more than 400 pilots between 1925-1930 and it's reported that some Balillas were built (or rebuilt) by this association. With the next great reform of the Regia Aeronautica in 1933, the task of training the pilots was assumed by the Regia Aeronautica itself, 12 Balillas were kept in active until March-April 1940, but most probably they had dissappeared some years earlier.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansaldo_A.1_Balilla
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Windsock Datafile 88 - Ansaldo A.1 Balilla
