AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

            The Colonial Air Tour of Italo Balbo     by Giorgio Baccinelli      The Air Tour of Southern Libya took place from June 15 to June 28, 1931. This air cruise is little known and was far less significant internationally than Balbo’s Atlantic cruises.      Its purpose was to fly over the Tibesti mountain range, a mountainous terrain in the center of the Sahara Desert, which had become a contentious subject between Italy and France. The French, taking advantage of the war against the insurgents in Cyrenaica, had made some territorial claims and created several military outposts in Southern Libya, where the inclement weather of the area allowed it.      The flight left from Ostia and consisted of three S.62bis seaplanes, powered by Isotta Fraschini 750 cv (740 hp) engines. An S.62 seaplane        The first seaplane was flown by Italo Balbo himself, with May...

          Tupolevs in the Roman Sky      Di Luigino Caliaro      (traduzione di Leonardo Pavese)     Recently, I had a chance to scan a few pictures that belong to a collector friend of mine, which, if at first, were not very interesting to me, because they were not pictures of Italian aircraft. But, after looking at them in detail they revealed a link to Italian aviation history that I did not expect.     Examining some of the pictures, I realized that in them there appeared some Regia Aeronautica’s officers, while other photos revealed backgrounds that were not, after all, totally unknown to me. Thanks to a 1934 copy of the publication Le Vie dell’Aria , I was able to trace the event pictured in my friend’s photos: It was the August 1934 visit to Rome by three Soviet Tupolev bomber aircraft. It must be said that that was not the first time that such exotic aircraft had visited the Eternal City. O...

                 Two paper airplanes by Giuseppe Gabrielli      by Giorgio Configliacco (Translated by Leonardo Pavese)      FIAT G.90      In Leonardo’s archive there is preserved a report entitled Velivolo (airplane) G.90, dated 3.31.1952. It consists of a three-page description and two drawings. One of the drawings is a 1:50 scale three-view rendering (shown above) dated 3.26.1951, while the second picture is also a three-view representation, but it is on a 1:10 scale and therefore it is more detailed.      According to the report, the G.90 project originated from “…the need of a high-performance trainer for allowing the cadets to familiarize themselves with jet-propelled aircraft, after a relatively short training period on propeller driven airplanes, in order to reach the (FIAT) G.80 level being adequately prepared.”      The FIAT G.90 presented a close resem...

Christ in the Wilderness. The Eagles      That is why artists, the more conscious they are of their “gift”, are led all the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise. (From the 1999 Letter of his Holiness Pope John Paul II to artists. )       Sir Stanley Spencer was a British artist who wanted to paint a picture dedicated to every single day Jesus spent in the desert, with the intent to show one on each day of Lent. We would like to honor this controversial and contradictory artist because we think he was animated by a great faith in God.        Sir Stanley Spencer. A controversial painter who loved Jesus.      by Liana Marabini (Translated by L. Pavese)        Jesus’ public life is interesting, not only for events of the time, recounted in the Gospels, but also because it concerns His physical pres...