Raffaele Conflenti


Raffaele Conflenti was an Italian aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer. During his career, he worked for some of the most important seaplane manufacturers in Italy and designed a large number of aircraft including civil and military flying boats, record-breaking seaplanes and land trainers and fighters.

Biography

Conflenti was born in Cosenza, then part of the Kingdom of Italy, on 4 December 1889. He graduated in engineering and in 1912 he started working for Società Italiana Transaerea in Turin. He then worked for Domenico Santoni's Società Costruzioni Aeronautiche Savoia in Milan and later he became the technical director of SIAI, the company Santoni had founded in 1914 together with businessman Luigi Capè. SIAI was headquartered in Sesto Calende, on Lake Maggiore.
Conflenti, who had initially supervised the production of license-built Blériot, Maurice Farman 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, where in 1921 he founded a new company named CAMS ; 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, headquartered in Monfalcone. He held that position until 1932.
Between late 1932 and 1935 Conflenti worked for the Società Aerea Mediterranea 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.