Fiat CR.42 references, by Dirk Broer

The Fiat Cr.42 was like the Gloster Gladiator one of the last biplane fighters that was used by front-line units of any of the major combatants of World War two. While the British factory stopped early in the war with the production of biplanes and went on to produce the RAF’s first front-line jet fighter, the Italians went on to refine their piston engined design. In doing so they produced amongst others world’s fastest biplane: the Fiat Cr.42DB, which had a Daimler-Benz DB601E engine. Other variants included perhaps world’s fastest biplane floatplane, the CMASA ICR.42 and perhaps world’s fastest two-seat biplane trainer, the Fiat CR.42B. Though not as great an export success as the Gloster Gladiator, the Fiat Cr.42 ’Falco’ saw service with the air forces of Belgium, Sweden, Hungaria and even with the German Luftwaffe. Model builders might be pleased to know that conversion sets exist for all possible versions, including the two-seat trainer and the DB601 engined variant and even the floatplane variant can be found as model with some persistence (Alpha flight, Classic Airframes).

Which reference will help you most when trying to super-detail one of the several possible kits, which has the most information?

In this overview I will present the Fiat Cr.42 references from my own library, mention their strong and weak points, hopefully adding yet a few more in the future (there are at least three Italian, and one Swedish reference out there that I still miss). In chronological sequences of their first publishing date they are:

Reprinted at least once in 1972 (blue cover compared to the original red)

Pros: the strength of the aircraft in profile series: it has everything, if only in small amounts. This is mainly because of its size: It has only the usual 12 pages of the older profiles.

Cons: it manages to get the form of the fin absolutely wrong in it’s side views (compare it to the much better 5-way view). Otherwise pretty good for it’s 12 pages

Pros: it has an actual photograph of the CMASA IC.R.42

Cons: It is probably out of print and totally in Italian. Sometimes said to have 24 pages, subtract 5 of these as being either cover or advertisements for other books. Cover art is the same as the side view/three-way view inside. No variant information

Pros: Bilingual, good color art, good scale plans in two scales (1:72 and 1:48), one detail drawing even in 1:24, small modeller’s section, good detail section.

Cons: no information about the differences between the sub variants (night fighter, fighter bomber, night harassment, trainer, Africanised version)

Pros: Bilingual, excellent color art, scale plans in two scales (1:72 and 1:48), modeller’s section.

Cons: contains no history besides the comments on the side views and has no detail information. Should be bought with its older brother by the same publisher, because together these two books are the best that is available on the Cr.42. Alone both fall short off the more all-round Squadron/Signal title.

Pros: the most all-round Cr.42 book that my money could buy yet. Lots of photographs, good artwork, variant drawings (for both Cr.32 and Cr.42).

Cons: half of the book gets ‘eaten away’ by the Cr.42’s older brother, the Cr.32, leaving half of the normal ‘in action’ space for the Cr.42 . Scale plan could have been better.

ISBN 91-631-1669-3

Pros: at 192 pages the biggest book about the Cr.42 in this review, it has an excellent history describing every detail of the use of the J11/Cr.42 by the Swedes, much photographs of which lots in color, good color art and a very good modeller’s section (even a scratch-built 1:5.5 model!) containing part of the color photographs and much detail. Two museum examples (including the British at Hendon) are used for color detail.

Cons: It is in Swedish (with only a small English summary), and handles –mainly, but exclusively- about the Swedish use of the J11, their sole version of this plane (There is an international chapter where even two South African captured one are mentioned). The book is also hard to get outside Sweden, though the internet can circumvent this. Though not cheap it is certainly worth its money

This book deserves in my opinion at least two translations: one in Italian and one in English. As it is it can be ordered straight from the writer/editor/publisher Mikael Forslund himself

I know of no general reference books describing the Fiat Cr.42 in such detail that it is worth mentioning here, but I will gladly stand corrected in this, not all Italian books are known to me. I can recommend Air Enthusiast Twenty though, a magazine. You can also look out for Aerei Modellismo n°5/1999 and Replic Magazine n°50-10/1995.

If you want to built yourself an ace version of this plane you should of course go for:

Books that will be included in this review in the future:

A 157 page Monograph, which has escaped me so far

June 2005

Dirk Broer