Raffaele Conflenti (4 December 1889 – 16 July 1946) was an Italian

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

and aircraft designer. During his career, he worked for some of the most important

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tech ...

manufacturers in Italy and designed a large number of aircraft including civil and military

flying boats A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull (watercraft), hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for b ...

, record-breaking seaplanes and land

trainers Sneakers ( US) or trainers ( UK), also known by a wide variety of other names, are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but are also widely used for everyday casual wear. They were popularized by compani ...

and fighters.

Biography

Conflenti was born in

Cosenza Cosenza (; Languages of Calabria#Northern Calabrian (Cosentian), Cosentian: ''Cusenza'', ) is a city located in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000, while the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. ...

, then part of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...

, on 4 December 1889. He graduated in engineering and in 1912 he started working for Società Italiana Transaerea (Italian Trans-Aeronautical Company, or SIT) in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

. He then worked for Domenico Santoni's Società Costruzioni Aeronautiche Savoia (Savoia Aeronautical Works Company) in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and later he became the technical director of SIAI (Società Idrovolanti Alta Italia,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

for Seaplane Company of Northern Italy), the company Santoni had founded in 1914 together with businessman Luigi Capè. SIAI was headquartered in Sesto Calende, on

Lake Maggiore Lake Maggiore (, ; ; ; ; literally 'greater lake') or Verbano (; ) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest lake in Italy and the largest in southern Switzerland. The lake and its shoreline are divided be ...

. Conflenti, who had initially supervised the production of license-built Blériot,

Maurice Farman Maurice Alain Farman (21 March 1877 – 25 February 1964) was a British-French Grand Prix motor racing champion, an aviator, and an aircraft manufacturer and designer. Biography Born in Paris to English parents, he and his brothers Richard an ...

and Henri Farman aircraft, now turned to FBA types. In 1917, however, his first original design—the SIAI S.8—made its maiden flight. Conflenti designed several other aircraft for SIAI before Santoni suddenly left SIAI and moved to Saint-Ouen, in the suburbs of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where in 1921 he founded a new company named CAMS (Chantiers Aéro-Maritimes de la Seine, French for Aircraft and Shipping Yards of the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

); Conflenti followed Santoni a few months later and became the technical director of CAMS. CAMS initially built SIAI aircraft under license, but Conflenti soon started designing new types of seaplanes, including record-breaking CAMS 30T and CAMS 36. Conflenti left CAMS in 1923 and he went back to Italy, where he became the head designer of the newly founded aeronautical section of CNT (Cantiere Navale Triestino, Italian for Shipyard of

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

), headquartered in

Monfalcone Monfalcone (; Venetian language#Regional variants, Bisiacco: ; ; ; archaic ) is a town and (municipality) in the Province of Gorizia, Regional decentralization entity of Gorizia in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy, located on the Gulf of Tr ...

. He held that position until 1932 (in the meantime, CNT had merged with Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino giving birth to Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, or CRDA). Between late 1932 and 1935 Conflenti worked for the Società Aerea Mediterranea (SAM) airline. In 1936 he started working for the Caproni group, where he collaborated with Giovanni Pegna; among his last designs were the Caproni Ca.164, Ca.165 and Ca.603. Conflenti died in Cosenza on 16 July 1946.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conflenti, Raffaele 1889 births 1946 deaths Aircraft designers Italian aerospace engineers