A Trimotor for the Royal Navy
The Bossi – Zari Trimotor Prototype By Giovanni Masino and Paolo Miana. (Translated by L. Pavese) The Regia Marina, the Italian Royal Navy, had always been very eager to have her own air arm; and on the eve of the Great War Dr. Enea Bossi proposed to the Regia Marina a modified version of the Curtiss “ America ”, which was an American twin-engine flying boat that had been purposely built for an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The foreseen Italian order was for eighteen aircraft. The Curtiss America seaplane, a version of which was proposed by Dr. Bossi to the Italian Royal Navy, with Isotta Fraschini engines Various complications and numerous modifications caused the project to be abandoned in 1915. However, Dr. Mario Castoldi, in his wartime Report on Aviation in Lombardy ( Relazione sull’Aviazione Lombarda ), states that three examples of the Bossi’s aircraft were built by the Fratelli Zari (Zari Brothers) company of Bovisio Mombello (Monza)