L.Andersson Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917-1941 (Putnam)

Savoia S.16

   The Italian Societa Idrovolanti Alta Italia (SIAI) built a long range of successful flying-boats and its first postwar design, the S.16, a six-seat passenger transport flying-boat, appeared in 1919. Designed by Raffaele Conflenti, it was a single-engined two-bay biplane powered by a water-cooled 300hp Fiat A.12bis engine. There were three separate open cockpits for the pilot and passengers in the hull, which had a concave bottom forward of the single step. The lower wings were fitted with ailerons and set at slight dihedral. The engine was mounted with a frontal radiator on a number of struts in a position between the wings, driving a four-blade wooden pusher propeller.
   Orders for the S.16 started to arrive after the Paris Air Salon of 1919, some of them from civil customers and others for the two-seat military version intended for reconnaissance and light bombing. The forward cockpit in the bow was equipped with a single machine-gun for the observer (the Soviet examples were fitted with DA machine-guns), mounted on a revolving ring. There were provisions for underwing bomb racks for 220kg of bombs. The S.16bis version had an improved extremely strong hull with triple wooden planking below the water-line with tarred linen between the layers, strengthened wings, a new propeller and increased fuel capacity. At least 100 S.16s were ordered by the Italian Navy and by the Regia Aeronautica and the air services of both the Spanish Army and Navy acquired many from 1921. Ecuador received one in 1924, Latvia six in 1923 and Turkey twenty in 1924.
   In order to be able to re-equip the naval reconnaissance units of the RKKVF the Soviet Government placed an order for the S.16bis on 11 December 1922. Thirty-five, of which five were intended as reserve aircraft, were delivered to Sevastopol in 1923, and these were followed by a 36th example in 1924 (c/ns 5018-5046 except one, 5050-5056 and 5065). The first twenty of these were sent to Hamburg by train accompanied by the Savoia test pilot Guarnieri and fourteen arrived by boat in Leningrad in April 1923. The S.16s were assigned to the 3rd Otdel'nyi razvedivatel'nyi gidro-aviatsionnyi otryad at Odessa and the 4th Otdel'nyi razvedivatel'nyi gidro-aviatsionnyi otryad at Sevastopol, which became the 53rd and 64th Aviaotryady in 1927. One of these flying-boats was fitted with a 250- 310hp BMW IV engine for comparative tests but crashed on its second flight on 2 October 1925. Meanwhile, the S.16ter version had been developed in Italy and during 1926-27 GAZ No. 3 in Leningrad was given the task of modifying some thirteen of the S.16s to the same standard. The Soviet S.16ter had a 450hp Lorraine-Dietrich V-12 engine which gave it improved performance.
   One S.16 piloted by E M Lukht participated in an expedition to Wrangel Island north of the extreme northeastern part of the Soviet Union in August 1927. It was carried along with Dobrolet's Junkers F 13 R-RDAS on board the steamship Kolyma and was employed for ice reconnaissance. Both aircraft were later flown from Tiksi on the north coast along the Lena River all the way down to Irkutsk. The 53rd Aviaotryad at Odessa was disbanded in 1928 and the 64th at Sevastopol followed suit in 1931. The Savoia flying-boats were handed over to other units for use as trainers. A number of S.16s had been assigned to the School of Naval Pilots at Sevastopol/Eisk for advanced training and to these were added a few remaining from operational units in 1933. The Eisk school still had seven on charge by the beginning of 1934.


S.16bis (S.16ter)
   300hp Fiat A.12bis (450hp Lorraine-Dietrich)
   Span 15.5m; length 9.97m; height 3.67m; wing area 60 nv
   Empty weight 1,670 (1,850) kg; loaded weight 2,570 (2,650) kg
   Maximum speed 165 (190) km/h; cruising speed 120 (140) km/h; alighting speed 85 (90) km/h; climb to 1,000m in 8 (6) min; ceiling 3,500 (4,000) m; endurance 4ft (3ft) hr; range 550km