AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

       International Observers in Italian Eastern Africa      By Gianclaudio Polidori (Translated and edited by Leonardo Pavese).      Between January and March 1936, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, a commission of foreign officers was accompanied to Eastern Africa to show the evidence of fair play on the part of the Italian forces, since the European adversaries of Italy insisted on the accusation of the use of illicit means in the conduct of the war. The Italians also wanted to demonstrate the operational capabilities of their military forces in that theatre. Some of the international observers with Italian General Staff officers. In the background: S.81s of the 63rd Squadriglia of the 24th Group, 9th Stormo B.T. (9th Land Bomber Wing) of the Italian Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force), based in Gura, Eritrea.       The head of the mission was Lieutenant Colonel Paolo Angioy, a mutilated, decorated veteran of...

     June 28, 1940. The shooting-down of Italo Balbo's airplane.       by Alberto Alpozzi (Translated from Italian by L. Pavese)      The Kingdom of Italy had entered Second World War just eighteen days ago.      It was 5:30 pm on June 28, 1940. The Britons had just carried out an air attack near the Italian base of Tobruk. High columns of black smoke were rising in the sky.      Two large airplanes, which for their shape looked like bombers, approached Tobruk airport at low altitude.      In the harbor of Tobruk there were the Italian Royal Navy cruiser San Giorgio and the submersible boat Bragadin . They were providing anti-aircraft protection, in conjunction with ground-based artillery, and they opened fire to defend from a possible second wave of bombing. A view of Tobruk harbor taken from a British RAF aircraft during the WWII      One of the two aircraft was hit and...

            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...

     New records on the Rome to Addis Ababa air route.      The historic flights of 1939.      It was the beginning of 1939, when the Milan daily newspaper “ Il Popolo d’Italia ” launched a race to establish a flight time record in the air route between Rome, the capital of Kingdom of Italy, and Addis Ababa, the capital of the new Italian Empire. The prize was just a commemorative plaque to celebrate the linking of the two capitals, but the goal of the initiative was to study a new civilian air route between Italy and Italian Eastern Africa.      Several crews took up the challenge. The first crew consisting of Leonardo Bonzi and Giovanni Zappetta took off from Guidonia (Rome) on March 5, 1939 with a Piaggio-Nardi FN 305 monoplane tourer, specifically modified for long range flights.      This version of the aircraft, designated FN 305D and registered I-UEBI, featured a redesigned fuselage that was stretched to a...