In 1908, aeronautical production started taking its first steps in Turin, by Fiat, with the decision to design and produce an engine, the SA 8/75, derived from racing cars.

The first mass-produced engine produced by Fiat was the A10, created in 1,070 units between 1914 and 1915: at this point the pioneer age had come to an end and the company decided to design and construct complete aircraft (1969).

Gradually, many other realities began such as the CMASA di Marina Company in Pisa, founded in 1921 by German design engineer Claude Dornier, in collaboration with Rinaldo Piaggio and Attilio Odero.

Finally, interactions and exchanges, accumulation of skills and experience, and multi-faceted stimuli have come from the many varied forms of international collaboration that have taken place with major companies like General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and Eurocopter, just to mention a few of the most important names with whom current partnerships go back over half a century.

The production of complete aircraft, already started up with the SP series, intensified under the guidance of design engineer Celestino Rosatelli who began his collaboration with Fiat in 1918.

In 1926, with the acquisition of the Ansaldo factory in Corso Francia, Turin, Fiat Aviazione merged with the Società Aeronautica d’Italia (Italian Aeronautical Company).

In 1931, Vittorio Valletta, the then General Manager of Fiat, employed a young design engineer, Giuseppe Gabrielli, to head the Aviation Technical Office.

While investments in the passenger and cargo transport sector continued with the opening up of European routes by civil airlines which used G18 and APR2 twin-engine monoplanes, the G50 was produced in 1937, in the CMASA factory in Marina di Pisa, the first single-seater fighter plane employed by the Italian Air Force.

In 1997, the acquisition of the controlling stake in Alfa Romeo Avio from Finmeccanica was key to a national strategic project aimed at reducing the excessive fragmentation of the Italian companies and at increasing competitiveness through more systematic synergies.