Pietro Magni

Who was Pietro Magni?

Pietro Magni was an Italian aeronautical engineer. He was heavily involved with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics later in his career.

Thanks to some of his intuitions, he has been the precursor of some devices extremely actual nowadays, like the variable incidence wings, the development of the canard wings or the as innovative project of monoplane aircraft with the wing held by a single post. His activity has not been limited to the design, becoming also an entrepreneur, establishing a firm initially dealing with the manufacture under license of gliders, and then taking charge of the audit of aircraft for the Regia Aeronautica. He designed the Vittoria 1924 sport plane.

He succeeded also in manufacturing some of his designed aircraft characterized by his designed innovative features. On that sphere he experimented the most important one, a patent of a particular cowling to be applied on a radial engine, that allowed to remarkably increase the aircraft aerodynamics penetration and allowing at the same time an efficient system of temperature regulation of the aircraft itself. This project, known as Anello Magni, has been further developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, becoming known as NACA cowling