Aeroplane to Aeroplano

Peter Talbot nel suo S-56-B Negli anni 1920 e 1930, vi erano negli Stati Uniti decine di piccole aziende, dai nomi ora quasi del tutto sconosciuti, che producevano aerei in piccolissime serie (anzi, non si potrebbe parlare neanche di produzione in serie), con un occhio al mercato del pilota privato. (E gli aerei di quel tempo sono illustrati molto bene nei cinque volumi U.S. Civil Aircraft Series di Joseph J. Hunter, pubblicati dalla McGraw-Hill, dai quali ho tratto e tradotto questo articolo).   Oggi, nell’era dei SUV con sedili imbottiti e posizione infinitamente regolabile elettricamente, sistema di navigazione satellitare per trovare la pizzeria più vicina e telecamere per fare la retromarcia in tutta sicurezza (non si sa mai!), sembra inconcepibile che un americano, relativamente facoltoso, potesse sopportare anche una sola mezzora di volo su un velivolo dell’epoca; magari con l’abitacolo aperto, il rumore e l’olio caldo che schizzava da tutte le parti (e mi  viene i

The Dornier Libelle and the 1920’s studies to equip the submarines of the Italian Royal Navy with submersible aircraft.  By Achille Vigna. (Translated and edited by L. Pavese) With a contract signed on October 20, 1924, the Italian Ministry of Aeronautics ordered S.A.I.C.M. of Marina di Pisa (Società Anonima Italiana Costruzioni Meccaniche) the building of two minuscule single-seat, single-engine Dornier Libelle (Dragonfly) airplanes. The first was to be delivered no later than April 1925 and the second in the following May. The design of the aircraft had been entered in an early 1924 ministerial contest for a removable wing seaplane destined to be embarked on the Barbarigo Class submarines, and it had come out the winner.  S.A.I.C.M. (Italian Anonymous Mechanical Manufacturing Company) had been set up on December 17, 1921, with the purpose of building aircraft designed and certificated by the German company Dornier Mertallbauten GmbH, which could not build its aircraft

      The Gold Medals for military valor awarded to Italian airmen during the First World War were very few, fewer than the ones awarded for the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936; but their correct number is not 22, as reported by some books, but 23.               By Roberto Gentilli (Translated by L. Pavese).               The 23rd medal was awarded to a foreigner, Lieutenant Fenafly Coleman de Witt, of the American Flying Group of the Army of the United States of America.  As it is well known, many American aviators arrived in Italy in 1918, and were trained for the bombing specialty on Italian Caproni tri-motors, mainly at the Air Training Center in Foggia. While the contribution of other allied Air Forces, mainly French and British, to the Italian war effort consisted of organic air groups, that is, complete and self sufficient reconnaissance and fighter squadrons, the Americans were fully integrated in the fabric of the Italian air arm: from the flying train