AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

Falling from Great Heights By Roberto Vacca Translated and re-elaborated (a bit) by Leonardo Pavese Lieutenant Giovanni Badalini of the Italian Royal Air Force completed 180 bombing missions over Malta. He was awarded one gold medal and two silver medals for military valor. On July 13, 1943, his S.M. 79 tri-motor bomber was shot down by a British fighter and dove to the ground. Badalini was ejected from the aircraft and fell at a speed greater than 310 mph. His parachute opened almost immediately and decelerated his fall so abruptly it caused him serious internal injuries. Normally, airmen who are ejected at high speed wait for the air resistance to slow them down to about 120 mph before opening their parachutes. After spending about 15 hours in the sea, Badalini was rescued by a British ship. After the Armistice , he went back to fly for the Italian Royal Force, this time against the Nazis; but before that he had to carry out a liaison mission wit...

The Clock of Palazzo Vecchio and the Florentine Detective. By Roberto Vacca. To everyone he was VP, not as in Vice President, but as in Vice Padrino. He was very self-confident. He was feared from Vegas to Miami, from Como to Capo Passero. Everyone obeyed him. He said: “Special agent Patrick O’Cuillenain followed me all the way here to Italy. That Irish son-of-a-bitch is going around saying he’s here just as a tourist. But he’s really sticking his nose where he’s not supposed to. I am gonna waste him myself.” His cousin objected: “VP, no. Do not expose yourself. We can send one of the boys.” “No, I’m gonna do it myself. This is personal.” Agent O’Cuillenain was pleased with his escort. Jack Ryan was an old friend. He was also Irish and spoke Italian well. O’Cuillenain had also hit it off with the Italian Florentine Carabinier Carlo Guarducci. He had sized the Italian up right away as smart, confident and reliable. The three of them had eaten in a very good resta...

Should what you write be extemporaneous or patiently reviewed? By Roberto Vacca. (Translated into English by L. Pavese) It appears that Ernest Hemingway rewrote the last page of his novel A Farewell to Arms twenty-six times. To me that always seemed an exaggeration. The novel was good, but it wasn’t so very excellent to justify such perfectionist care. Nevertheless, I began to ask myself if there weren’t a relation between Hemingway’s compulsive reviewing and the fact that he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. Victor Ricketts types in the cockpit of the de Havilland Comet, right before leaving for his record breaking 1938 round-the world-flight. I doubt he had much time to review what he wrote.  Many decades later, in the introduction to his book The New Industrial State , John Kenneth Galbraith wrote: “My writing begins to appear spontaneous only afte...