[charley]

Hi Chris,
I do not know how many AR powered aircraft ,other than those in museums are currently in flying condition the last 5 small aircraft I showed above had at least one of each on the register in the seventies although some had been re engined . I believe that one Caproni Ca.100 idro float plane ( Colombo S.63) has been restored to flying condition , if I can trace I will post a photo of it.
The Alfa engines were remarkable for their reliability .The Alfa engineers seemed to improve every engine that they built. The AR RA 1000 was said to be 150hp more powerful than the German DB.601 , as Collivanfan stated in a post above the British engineers were peeved that the AR built Bristol ORPHEUS proved to be more powerful than the British built version. In the more recent past AR Avio, who at the time were overhauling the P&W Canada PT6T-6 for the Italian Air force helicopter fleet , found that the overhauled engines suffered from a high rejection rate of 40o/o. The engineers at AR Avio R&D investigated the causes and developed methods of rectifying the problem ,the result being that the rejection rate plunmmeted. So since day one the engineering prowess and attention to detail and tolerances of AR engineers meant that they were second to none in the Aviation business.
Your question regarding the Italian markings on the SM.79Corsa aircraft for the Istres-Damascus-Paris race . is that they were based on the names of the pilots of the aircraft as set out below….
race No 1-5… I-BIMU pilots A.BISEO & B.MUSSOLINI.
race No 1-6 I-TOMO pilots TONDI AND MOSCATELLI
race No 1-7 I-LICA pilots LIPPI & CASTELLANI
race No. 1-11. I-CUPA pilots T.CON.CUPINI & CAP.PARADISES
race No 1-12 I-ROTR pilots ROVIS & TRIBOLI
race No 1-13. .I-FILU pilots FIORI & LUCCHINI

The three aircraft that took part in the Rome –Rio raid had their markings changed as below…
I-BIMU became I-BISE pilots BISEO & PARADISES.
I-FILU became I-BRUN pilots Bruno Mussolini & Mancinelli
I-CUPA became I-MONI pilots Moscatelli & Castellani.
N.B The Rio aircraft Carried the Paris -Damascus race no on the tail of the aircraft,

I hope that answers your question.

Charley