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The Fiat CR.42 Falco (Falcon) was a strong little bi-plane that had excellent manoeuvrability. It was relatively weak in armament with only 2 Breda SAFAT machine guns and also could only reach a top speed of 274 mph. It was the main frontline fighter for the RA at the start of the war. It proved to be a worthy opponent of the British Gladiator which was also a bi-plane. However, it began to struggle when the British began to throw more monoplanes such as the Hawker Hurricane into the field of battle.
G.50 Freccia
The second offering from Fiat in WW2 was the G.50 Freccia (Arrow). It made several improvements on its predecessor the CR.42. It was Italy's first all-metal monoplane with retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit (most pilots had this removed as they felt it reduced visibility ). The Freccia was again a very manoeuverable plane, had a top speed of 292 mph and was quite durable. But again, like the CR.42, it had a weak armament of only 2 Breda SAFAT machine guns. It did quite well against the Hawker Hurricane but had some trouble against the Spitfire.
The Macchi C.200 Saetta (Thunderbolt) was the most used Italian plane in WW2 seeing the most sorties out of any plane. It was used in every theater of war that Italy was involved in. It was a very strong plane and was often used as a fighter-bomber. It was an excellent turning plane and was great in high-speed dives but it was underpowered and underarmed like most of the initial wave of Italian planes. It's armament was the usual 2 Breda SAFAT machine guns in the engine cowling while the plane could reach a top speed of 313 mph. It stayed relatively even with the British Hurricane and Spitfire but as the war went on it was outclassed quite quickly.
C.202 Folgore
The Macchi C.202 Folgore (Lightning) was probably the finest plane that Italy made that saw quite a bit of action. It was the first plane that the pilots left the enclosed cockpit on because the visibility was fine with it. It was agile, fast (top speed of 372 mph) and was fairly durable. It was underarmed in its' early variants as it was armed with just 2 Breda SAFAT machine guns but eventually in later variants two wing mounted machine guns were added. However, the Folgore did have some drawbacks. It had a tendency to get into a deadly spin if flown too aggressively, lacked decent radio equipment (like all Italian planes), and also had a subpar oxygen system. It also suffered in desert conditions until the RA figured out they needed to put air filters on the engine intakes to keep out intrusive sand.
| Pilot | Kills |
| Franco Lucchini | 26 |
| Adriano Visconti | 26 |
| Teresio Martinoli | 23 |
| Leonardo Ferrulli | 22 |
| Franco Bordoni | 19 |