The Italian Air Force turns 100

Tomorrow the Italian Air Force turns 100 years old. It was March 28, 1923 when the planes and aviators who up to that moment had been part of the Army and Navy were relocated into an autonomous Arma. In previous years, our pilots had achieved remarkable exploits: they were the first in history to use aircraft in military missions, not only for reconnaissance but also for bombing, with the hand-throwing of bombs on Turkish troops in Libya in 1911. In Great War of ’15-’18 Italian industry (Macchi, Caproni, Ansaldo, Fiat and other manufacturers) actually produced 11,986 fighter planes, on which about 5,100 pilots flew. On the other hand, the war, even if it was industrialized, did not take away space from the mythical figures of heroes, starting with Francesco Baracca (1888-1918), who performed dozens of acrobatic duels in the skies and shot down 34 enemy planes. His coat of arms, the Prancing Horse, later became the symbol of Ferrari.

Numerous celebrations are planned for the secular deadline. The solemn ceremony will be held tomorrow in Rome on the Pincio terrace, with the flight display of the Frecce Tricolori. Also in Rome, in Piazza del Popolo, until 29 March the Air Force Experience presents planes and objects related to aviation. At the Altare della Patria, until April 23, you can visit a historical exhibition (photos, posters, documents) which then during the year, until Christmas, will tour around twenty Italian cities. And in April the Historical Air Force Museum of Vigna di Valle (Rome) will be reopened, rearranged for the Centenary.

If you pay attention to the dates, only five months passed between the March on Rome on October 28, 1922 and March 28, 1923, when the Regia Aeronautica was established as a distinct arm. Mussolini had great expectations: he wanted to make it his own creature, the “Fascismistic Weapon” as new and devoid of those pre-fascist traditions that permeated the Army and Navy. The passion for airplanes united Mussolini with the futurists of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and with Gabriele D’Annunzio of the famous flight over Vienna (August 9, 1918). Focusing on aviation was also a calculation of international politics: Italy aspired to be a great power, and in part it was, but on the basis of any parameter it was the weakest of the big ones. It is no use trying to compete with the armies of Germany or Russia on land, or the Royal Navy at sea. Instead, the Arma Azzura had just been born, not only in our country, but throughout the world, so we started from scratch everywhere, without major handicaps. By betting many cards on aviation we could (perhaps) change the balance in our favor.

In practice, this turned out to be nothing more than a dream. The modest industrial size of Italy weighed down the take-off of the newborn Air Force, and the regime itself, beyond the rhetoric, showed that it didn’t believe in it very much: the scarce resources were used mostly to organize large intercontinental flights, in particular those of Italo Balbo, which proved to be powerful propaganda tools for the regime but did not change the balance of forces between the Italian state and the others.

From then until today the Second World War has been involved and now we live in a Republic that “repudiates war as a means of settling international disputes” but is part of collective security systems (EU, NATO, UN). In a hundred years or so we have gone from iron, wood and fabric airplanes to the super-technological F-35 and the Tempest is already announced, the result of a collaboration between Italy, the United Kingdom and some other countries and which will be able to fly unmanned and to act as a coordination platform for drone flights. Appointment in another 100 years with Star Trek spaceships.