Velocita e Navigazione

All eyes turned to Italy last week for exciting news of aeronautics which promised to grow more exciting in the next few weeks.

At Lake Garda in northern Italy, Colonel Mario Bernasconi, commander of the Scuola di Alta Velocita (high speed school), took the controls of the "Red Bullet" seaplane in which Warrant Officer Francesco Agello lately made a new world speed record of 423.7 m. p. h. (TIME, April 17). Col. Bernasconi streaked around the measured course of the lake while timing cameras clicked. The developed films showed a speed (unofficial) of 434 m. p. h.

No flukes are the new Italian speed records, but the fruit of a determined program begun six years ago, after Britain won the Schneider Trophy on Italy's course at Venice. At that time Air Minister Italo Balbo established the speed school at Lake Garda, put Col. Bernasconi in command. The following year Italy upped the world record to 318 m. p. h., soon lost it again to Britain. Italy's efforts to regain the record took a frightful toll. She had pinned her hopes on a Macchi seaplane with a 2,800-h. p. Fiat motor driving two propellers. One after another these machines dove into Lake Garda, carrying to death in turn the crack pilots of the high speed school--Monti, Bellini, Dal Molin. Neri--until last month when Agello triumphed. British airmen maintain that the Macchi's phenomenal speed is due to a reduced wing span which makes its landing speed more than two miles a minute, a lower safety factor than is permitted in Great Britain. The S. B.-Rolls-Royce ship which won the last Schneider Trophy for Great Britain landed at about 90 m. p. h. At Orbetello, 60 mi. from Rome, 100 aviators are being drilled, trained and watched like crack athletes at the Scuola di Navigazione Aerea (long distance school). The airmen are the pilots, navigators & crews of 24 seaplanes which spade-bearded General Italo Balbo will lead late this month to the Chicago World's Fair. The 6,280-mi. flight will be made via Iceland, Greenland and Montreal in daily hops, the longest of which is 1,560 mi. from Iceland to Labrador. Last week an advance squad of ten Italian mechanics and radiomen left Copenhagen for Reykjavik to set up an overhaul base for the armada. Three airplanes arrived at St. Johns, Nfd. for transshipment to another base at Cartwright, Labrador.

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