The Standoffish Italian

     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 Gianclaudio Polidori (translated and edited by L. Pavese). 

The Telebomba Crocco Guidoni derived from the Guidoni "sliding bomb," and it was the result of the cooperation between Dr. Alessandro Guidoni and Dr. Gaetano Crocco during the Great War 1914-1918.

Although it was smaller, it incorporated the main technologies of its predecessor such as directional gyroscopic control and the ability to glide for several miles then dive to the target after shedding its lift, controlled by gears, rods and eccentrics driven by an aft-mounted wind driven turbine.

The bomb was designed to be launched by airships or airplanes at an altitude of about 10,000’ and from more than 5 nautical miles from large targets such as enemy military camps, industrial plants or depots in order to avoid antiaircraft defenses. Of course, it wouldn’t have been useful against small or moving targets. (Unlike the modern gliding bombs, that can rely on external guidance. T/N).

A Russian FAB-500 equipped with the UMPK system
which allows it to glide and hit distant targets. 

The first air launches were made from an M Class airship at Vigna di Valle (19 miles northwest of Rome) with positive results, but there is no record of the Telebomba being used in the war. In 1918, the end of the war in sight and the still incomplete tests decreed the shelving of the project, and the gliding bomb did not reach production.

But in 1923, Umberto Nobile and Alessandro Guidoni resumed working on the Telebomba and applied a few modifications to the wing dihedral and to the aerodynamic control surfaces, although it seems that they did not make any significant improvement; and the project was definitively abandoned.

The Forlanini F6 airship was used for the second Telebomba test cycle. The F6 had been modified after WWI with the addition of passenger gondola. 

There are, at least, two surviving examples of the Guidoni-Crocco “Telebomba.” One of them was a training example with a smoke-generating charge that belonged to the Museo del Vittoriale. It was restored by the Alessandria members of our association, led by the late Dr. Francesco Carrer; and the other was recently restored by the staff of the MUSAM (Italian Air Force Historic Museum of Vigna di Valle) and exhibited thereat. In the latter one, the missing aluminum cover panels of the aft part of the bomb allow the viewing of the controls and the small bottle of compressed air bottle that drove the gyroscope. This bomb had been originally preserved in the Regia di Caserta (Caserta Royal Palace). Later it was moved to Guidonia (Rome) with a lot of historically significant material, waiting for the establishment of the Air Force museum. Then the bomb was stored at Vigna di Valle where it was finally restored and shown after the Air Force one hundred anniversary remodeling of the Museum.

The Telebomba shown at the Italian Air Force Museum
 at Vigna di Valle. 

 

I hope you found this interesting. Your comments, as usual, will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Leonardo Pavese