Page 21
United States is to scan critical parts of C.200
and C.202s in American museums. There’s
a C.200 in Dayton, Ohio, and a C.202 at the
NASM in Washington, DC. For many years it
hung in a museum building in the city, near the
National Mall, and is currently scheduled to be
dismantled at Steven F. Udwar-Házy at Dulles
Airport in Chantilly. We are already very familiar
with this facility.
In any case, the museum in Vigna di Valle
is worth a visit regardless of the condition of
the machines mentioned above. After all, you
wouldn't know anything was wrong with them
as a regular visitor anyway, the planes are
very nicely restored and in excellent condition.
However, I am sure that as modelers, you would
suspect this in our kits, especially if you were
given the necessary information by an expert
taken at his word, and that word may even be
given prior to a kit release, as it often is.
The C.200-205 series fighters are not the only
Macchi aircraft in Vigna di Valle. They have this
stunning collection of three Macchi M.39, M.57
and M.72 floatplanes racers. These are wonderful
machines, built for the then famous Schneider
Cup. On October 23rd, 1934, pilot Francesco
Agello set a world record of 709.209 km/h in an
M.72 with two counter-rotating propellers and
powered by a twenty-four-cylinder Fiat AS.6
engine with an output of 2,300hp. However, the
maximum speed of this machine is stated to be
711.426 km/h! These Macchi birds aren't the only
seaplanes in the museum, after all the museum
is built on the grounds of a former seaplane base.
Here you will also find another Fiat C.29 racer,
as well as a huge three-engine Cant Z.206 and
a wonderful Austro-Hungarian Lohner L-1, which
can be taken as one of the themes in Vigna di
Valle with a Czech or Czechoslovak connection.
Another such item is a replica of the gondola
of the airship Italia, which in 1928 under
the command of Umberto Nobile set out on
a journey to the North Pole, only to be wrecked
in a storm on May 25th, 1928, about 100 km
north of Northeast Land, one of the islands of
the Svalbard archipelago. Of the sixteen crew
members, eight people were saved during
a dramatic rescue operation in which the famous
Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen
disappeared without a trace, along with the
operation’s commander Umberto Nobile, his dog
and the mascot of the expedition, a Fox Terrier
named Titina and the Czech scientist František
Běhounk. I was mesmerized by Běhounk's
book ‘Castaways of the Polar Sea’ as a boy and
I wanted to be a polar explorer, which I was later
somewhat introduced to by the Italian-Soviet
film ‘Red Tent’ from 1969, with Peter Finch in the
role of Nobile and Sean Connery in the role of
Amundsen. My later experiences with winter
maneuvers in Šumava during my military service
were completely brought out. In Vigna di Valle,
they also have a documentation center of this
fascinating story of human courage, the desire
for knowledge and sacrifice to save human lives,
where various remains of Nobile's expedition,
his personal library and archives, are stored. We
didn't have time to do that, and you can only go
there after prior ordering, so I have to go there
at least once more.
The third, but this time Czechoslovak or, more
precisely, Slovak connection, is the Caproni Ca-3
three-engine bomber. One of the founders of the
first Czechoslovak Republic, a Slovak scientist,
aviator and the first Minister of Defense of the
newly formed Czechoslovakia, General Milan
Rastislav Štefánik, died on this type of aircraft
while returning to his homeland. They don't
mention this much in Vigna di Valle, and if they
do, I missed it. But even so, this exhibit has
an incredible history behind it. This machine,
a survivor of World War I, was bought after
its retirement by its pilot Casimiro Buttini,
reportedly for 30,000 lire, stored in a barn,
from where it was purchased by the Italian Air
Force for museum purposes in 1958. I confess at
this point that this plane is one of my all time
favorites. I've admired it like a ravenous cat
several times in Dayton, Ohio, and I'll be gazing
into its gorgeous eyes again this year, and we've
even started designing it as a kit at Eduard.
The design is in progress but momentarily hidden
in a drawer with our designer Karel Mišák.
The Lohner L-1 is associated with the most successful Austro-Hungarian naval aviator Gotfried von Banfield,
who scored 6 kills in a Lohner L-1 with fuselage designation L16. The machine in the museum in Vigna di Valle,
with the fuselage designation L127, reached Italy on 3 June 1918 after the defection of its two-man crew, which
landed in the port of Fano. The machine is very well preserved, having undergone a complete refurbishment in
1988. A total of 93 aircraft of this type were built, the L127 being one of 24 produced in Hungary by UFAG.
The Caproni Ca-3 heavy three-engined bomber on display at Vigna di Valle was purchased by its pilot, Casimiro
Buttini, after his retirement from the Italian Air Force, reportedly for 30 000 lire and stored in his barn, from
where it was bought by the Italian Air Force for museum purposes in 1958. Another original piece of this type is
in the USAF museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, and a replica, built at the Aircraft Repair Shop in
Trencin, is on display at the museum in Piešt'any, Slovakia.
ARTICLES
INFO Eduard
21
April 2024