Editor’s Pics

The steeply raked windshield.

Photos & Story by Lance Phillips

I don’t think I am unique in holding the Piaggio Avanti P.180 in a place of high regard. There also seems to be just a little mystery around it. Operators measure speeds in Mach numbers, it has a very accommodating and quiet interior, and it is one of the most efficient twin-turboprops ever to fly. And didn’t Enzo Ferrari’s son have a stake in Piaggio?

Its fuselage looks like a low-drag airfoil, the steeply-raked windshield creating the front end of the cross-section. Although Gates Learjet had a part in its development, the cabin was closer to a mid-size jet than a small Lear. The first few Avantis were even manufactured in Wichita near Lear and shipped to Italy for completion. Like its Learjet cousins, the Avanti is fast. The Avanti’s website proclaims a maximum speed of 402 knots at FL310 and ISA, and right next to the max speed, Avanti lists an MMO of .70. That’s 70% of the speed of sound–in a turboprop.

The sleek design is deceiving. The fastest twin-turboprop around is also one of the most comfortable. The cabin is over six feet wide and five feet nine inches tall. Compare that to a King Air 360 at four and a half feet wide and four feet nine inches tall. The Avanti is not quite as long as the big King Air, but it accommodates an executive passenger list in more comfort–and that Italian style.

Avanti is powered by 2 Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-66B engines flat rated to 850 shp up to ISA+28. The King Air 360 uses Pratt’s PT6A-60A, rated at 1,050 shp per side. But Avanti turns its engines backward, which actually makes sense. By rotating the big Hartzell props to the rear, along with the exhaust, Piaggio substantially lowers the noise levels inside the cabin.

Faster, more comfortable, and more efficient. The Avanti is an amazing machine that has encountered obstacles throughout its development and manufacturing life cycle. Ferrari came in to help Piaggio Aero but then sold his interest to a potential Formula One sponsor. And it continues to face headwinds. We can only hope that this class-leading design forges ahead.

A few years ago, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with my 90s-vintage Contax G1 in hand, I came across a beautiful Avanti. The Contax G1 was a marvel all on its own. Contax, an old German camera maker, had sold the rights to the name to Kyocera in Japan. And like the Contax of old, it also partnered with Zeiss optics for the detachable lens G system (which later consisted of the G2).

The G1 is unique for lots of reasons–it’s a rangefinder that uses a now obsolete autofocus system. Although obsolete compared to the unreal autofocus systems today, I think it’s just fine and gets the job done for film photography. The G1 also includes auto film loading, auto rewind, and auto advance. Everything auto. Even the film speed is automatically read by the camera, so the user doesn’t have to set an ISO speed. It was a marvel of technology in the 90s, and the Zeiss lenses made specifically for the G system cameras are still considered some of the best made ever. And it was just a beautiful design, like the Avanti.