Crociera aerea del Decennale - Decennial Aerial Cruise (1933)

Crociera aerea del Decennale - Decennial Aerial Cruise (1933)

Le Vie dell'aria

58 pages in Italian

July 1, 1933. For the 10th anniversary of the Regia Aeronautica (Royal Italian Air Force), Italo Balbo is organizing a major transatlantic air raid: Orbetello (the cradle of Italian seaplane flying) - Chicago (where the 1933 World Expo is held) - New York - Rome. 25 seaplanes Siai Marchetti S.55X and more than 100 crew members are participating in this journey, which is marked by two fatal accidents: one in Amsterdam and the other in the Azores with the loss of a seaplane.

Italo Balbo had initially proposed a world tour, but the idea was abandoned because of the danger of crossing a region affected by the Russo-Japanese war. The selected seaplane, the SM.55X, was considerably modified, among other things with the replacement of the Fiat 12-cylinder engine by the new Isotta Fraschini Asso 750 18-cylinder engine.

In support of the raid, the Italian navy had pre-positioned the ship "Alice" in Cartwright Bay, the submarines "Balilla" and "Millelire", as well as the minesweepers "Matteucci" and Bilieri" as beacons.

There is still a memorial hill in Chicago between Soldier Field and Burnham Park that commemorates the Balbo Passage and its seaplanes.

This document is a special issue of the Italian aeronautical journal "Le Vie dell'Aria" published for the arrival of the raid at the Lido in Rome on August 12, 1933. It describes all the preparations and technical aspects of the raid, without failing - of course - to transform it into a huge propaganda tool for Mussolinian fascism.