A.1 Balilla | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Fighter |
Manufacturer | Gio. Ansaldo & C. |
Designer | |
Status | Retired |
Primary users | Italian Air Force |
Number built | ~250 by Ansaldo, 57 by Lublin under licence |
History | |
Manufactured | 1917-1924 |
Introduction date | 1918 |
First flight | March 1917 |
The Ansaldo A.1, nicknamed "Balilla" after the Genoan folk-hero, was Italy's only domestically-designed fighter aircraft of World War I to be produced in Italy. Arriving too late to see any real action, it was however used by both Poland and the Soviet Union in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921.