AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

       The " Telebomba " was not an Italian TV show or an exploding TV set, but it was an experimental stand-off weapon (tele, from the Greek "far" or "at a distance" and bomba, bomb in Italian) tested in Italy during WWI. The objective, of course, was to allow aircraft to launch bombs at a relatively safe distance from enemy air defenses. The concept was revived recently during the Russo-Ukrainian war , in which the Russian Air Force is using similar weapons very proficuously.      I thought that it would be interesting to show a couple of photographs of the Italian tele-bomb, excerpted from the n.145 of the Italian Magazine "Ali Antiche."     Ali Antiche is the publication of the GAVS , and Italian association of aviation enthusiasts who research Italian aviation history and restore historically significant Italian aviation aircraft. A Telebomba being attached to a bomb pylon of the Forlanini F6 airship The Crocco Guidoni “Telebomba” by Gia...

  The Mysterious I.G.R.    by Giulio Cesare Valdonio         I’ve had for many years in my library a brochure that was published in 1937 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the aeronautics laboratory of the Politecnico of Turin (Italy). The lab was started in 1912 by Dr. Modesto Panetti, encouraged by Colonel Motta who was the commander of the Battaglione Specialisti del Genio, the Engineer Specialist Battalion). The brochure contains a picture of an airplane that I cannot identify. In the wind tunnel there is mounted a model of a four-engine central hull seaplane, with braced wing and empennage.           As far as I know, in Italy the development of an airplane of that kind was never started; so, I thought that it could be academic study with no relation to Italian industry.      A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Politecnico of Turin’s wind tunnel, which was built after WWII in pla...

  April 28, 1945 , Giulino di Mezzegra , in the Province of Como, Italy. In a place so marginal to be almost invisible, there dies, after having been captured while he was fleeing and convicted without a trial, Benito Mussolini . And with him, Claretta Petacci . There was no order to shoot Benito Mussolini and his ministers. So, who did really kill him? A dialog with Luciano Garibaldi. From Pangea,  rivista avventuriera di cultura e idee. Traduzione di Leonardo Pavese About that day, oh what a paradox, the only certain thing is that it is not certain what you, certainly, will find in history books. That is, that the one who killed Il Duce was “ Colonel Valerio ,” an alias that can be traced back to Walter Audisio , an accountant from Alessandria, later a representative and a Senator of the Republic in communist garb. One could say that what matters are the outcomes and not the means. But it is not true: legends are built on the bodies of leaders. The identity of a nation i...

       Our  era is not only marked by a conventional date, but also by new concrete factors among which there is the entity of atmospheric radioactivity and its consequences. Dramatic chasms in time    by Roberto Vacca (Traduzione di Leonardo Pavese) We use the dates of significant events to mark periods of time or the beginning of new eras. World War II ended in the summer of 1945. Since then, we have been in the “postwar time.” This new era is not only marked by a conventional date, but also by new concrete factors among which there is the entity of atmospheric radioactivity and its consequences. Among the sources of natural atmospheric radioactivity, the polluting radon gas is at the top of the list. Radioactive radon is produced by the natural decaying of the uranium chain. Cosmic rays are another important source of radioactivity in the air. The artificial causes are the use of radioactive materials in healthcare, scientific research and ra...