Colonial records
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...