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During the trip, we received word that the
C.205 scan was being moved up by a day.
So we extended our stay in Varese, which wasn't
exactly easy because there was some apparently
important cycling event going on in Varese
the next day and the hotel was full of racers,
coaches and service team members. We used the
extra free day to visit the Volandia Museum on
the grounds of the former Caproni factory near
Milan’s Malpensa Airport and the town of Stresa
on Lake Maggiore, where I completed one matter
that I had not managed to during my stay in
Stresa two years earlier. Stan did not go with us.
He stayed at the hotel and worked on his wheel
bay design. Unfortunately, at that time his new
design team, we can call it the ‘P-40 Operational
Group’, was already starting the design of the 3D
model of the P-40E, and they urgently needed
to go over some things. This took up four hours,
so after Jakub and I returned from Stresa, the
well was still not finished. So we went to dinner.
We placed our faith in a ‘modernist’ pizzeria
with design-oriented types of pizza whose
names none of us have ever heard before and
will probably never hear again. Colleagues didn't
like their pizzas, and I forgot what I actually
had on mine. There were definitely anchovies,
and even got extras in a can. There are always
crossroads of decisions with any design stuff.
Truth is, the box, with only two anchovies left in
it, looked a bit like the wheel well of the Mustang
in Stan’s background photos. Actually, the thing
resembled the wheel well of a Mustang whose oil
cooler had been shredded by flak while strafing
somewhere over Germany. But that also could
have been the wine. In any case, we still didn't
Landing gear bay for P-51A
Landing gear bay for P-51B/C
The Ansaldo SVA 5 in Volandia is a scaled-down replica (90%), built by Professor
Antonio Angelucci in 2001. It was built after the original, machine serial number
11721, which is in the collections of the museum in Vigna di Valle. This exhibit has
been in Volandia since July 2022, when it was donated to the museum
by Professor Angelucci's son Giuseppe.
We have already met a Macchi C.205 in Volandia.
In this case it is a fiberglass replica.
The Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boat is of great importance to Italian aviation not
only because of its unique design (it was a flying catamaran), but especially because
of the long-distance flights that the crews of these machines undertook both alone
and in large groups. The first of such flights was the "flight of the four continents",
in which Colonel Francesco de Pinedo and his crew flew across Africa to South
America, from there to the USA and back to Europe via Canada. The route of the
flight was 46 960 km long. This was followed by flights of large aircraft formations,
led by Marshal Balbo. The first flight across the Mediterranean (25 May - 2 June
1928) involved 61 flying boats, 10 of which were of the S.55 type. These were later
followed up by Balbo's transatlantic flights, the first of which was a flight of 14 S.55s
in 1930. S. 55A, crewed by Umberto Maddalena and Stefano Cagna, made
a significant contribution to the rescue of General Umberto Nobile's expedition that
was wrecked in the Arctic in the summer of 1928.
The exhibit in Volandia is a 1:1 scale replica that is still being worked on
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April 2024