Francesco de Pinedo
Francesco de Pinedo | |
---|---|
Brooklyn, New York, U.S. | |
Buried | Italy |
Allegiance | Kingdom of Italy |
Service/ | Regia Marina (1911-1923) Regia Aeronautica (1923-1933) |
Years of service | 1911-1933 |
Rank | Generale di divisione aerea (Air divisional general) |
Battles/wars | |
Awards | FAI Gold Air Medal Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) |
Francesco de Pinedo (February 16, 1890 – September 2, 1933)
Early life
Pinedo was born on 16 February 1890 in Naples, Italy, into a patrician family, the son of a lawyer. As a teenager he studied literature and the arts and developed a lifelong passion for music.[3][4]
Career
Early career
Pinedo entered the Italian Naval Academy at Leghorn (Livorno) in 1908 at the age of 18. He graduated in 1911 and was commissioned as an officer in the Regia Marina (Italy's Royal Navy). He served aboard destroyers during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, witnessing Italy's air operations against the Ottoman Empire, the first time that any country had used aircraft in combat. The experience sparked his interest in aviation.[3][4]
After Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies in May 1915, de Pinedo again saw action at sea. In 1917, he volunteered for duty in the Regia Marina's air service. Entering flight school at Taranto in July 1917, he completed aviation training in only 45 days, and qualified as a pilot in two months. He spent most of the rest of the war flying reconnaissance missions for the Regia Marina.[3][4][5]
After the war ended in November 1918, Pinedo returned briefly to sea duty, but soon resumed aviation duties. In the immediate postwar years he made milestone flights from Italy to the Netherlands and in 1921 from Brindisi to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire. On 16 October 1923 he transferred from the Regia Marina to the Regia Aeronautica (Italy's Royal Air Force)[4] which had been founded that year as an independent service. He entered the new service with a rank of tenente colonnello (lieutenant colonel) and because of his technical and organizational skills was given senior positions as its chief staff officer and the vice commandant of one of its air squadrons despite being only in his early 30s.[3][4][6]
Pinedo's cultured background and naturally reserved nature, as well as the orderliness and neatness instilled in him by his naval training, made him atypical of the aviators of his day, who tended to be mavericks and daredevils. He preferred to avoid publicity. Adventurous without being reckless, he became an influential advocate of the seaplane, sharing a belief with many other aviators of his time that flying boats were the key to aviation's future because of their ability to land safely on the sea in the case of emergencies during long flights over water. He also believed that seaplanes were more practical than landplanes because of the proximity to water of most cities and towns. With airports not yet common, Pinedo observed, "Civilization is built on water. The world's principal cities are mirrored by seas, rivers, or lakes. Why not utilize these immense, ready-to-use, natural air strips in place of costly airports?"[4] Pinedo even envisioned a day when people would commute to work each day by piloting their own seaplanes from ponds near their homes to municipal docks in city marinas, where they would moor their planes near their places of employment, then return to them to fly home for the evening.[4][6]
By 1925, Pinedo's advocacy of the seaplane and its capability to make global air travel feasible led to him being regarded as Italy's leading expert on aviation matters, especially after he presented a paper to the
A promising Regia Aeronautica career as a high-ranking staff officer beckoned to Pinedo, but this did not appeal to him. After only a year working at a desk he requested a leave of absence in late 1924 in order to return to the cockpit to make long-distance flights that would demonstrate the feasibility of long-distance air travel, highlight the superiority of the seaplane in such travel, and show the world that Italy led the way in the pioneering of long-distance aviation. The
1925 Rome-Australia-Tokyo-Rome flight
In 1920, the Italian aviators Arturo Ferrarin and Guido Masiero had made a multi-stop, 11,000-mile (18,000-km) flight from Rome to Tokyo in a pair of Ansaldo SVA-9 trainers. They had overcome various difficulties, including crashes that damaged or wrecked their aircraft, and they had been the only two out of 11 pilots that had begun the journey to complete it. They had left their planes behind in Japan and returned to Italy by ship. Pinedo proposed to explore the idea that a seaplane would have been a better choice for the trip by making a flight from Rome to Australia and Tokyo and then back to Rome again, a journey over three times as long as the 1920 trip. For his flight, he chose an SIAI S.16ter flying boat which he named Gennariello.[7]
On 21 April 1925, Pinedo and his mechanic, Ernesto Campanelli, departed Rome aboard Gennariello. They stopped first at
On 16 July, Pinedo and Campanelli flew on to
After a three-week stay in Tokyo, Pinedo and Campanelli began their return journey to Rome on October 17, a 15,000-mile (24,000-km) trip that they made in only 22 days – an impressive speed at the time – with stops at Kagoshima in Japan; Shanghai in China;
The
1927 "Four Continents" flight
Mussolini suggested that Pinedo next make a flight to the Western Hemisphere to inspire pride in people of Italian ancestry who had emigrated to the Americas. This idea developed into the "Four Continents" flight of 1927, intended to demonstrate the ability of a flying boat to fly from Italy to Africa and across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil, followed by several stops in South America and the Caribbean, a tour of the United States and Canada, and a transatlantic flight back to Europe ultimately ending in Rome.[7]
Pinedo, his copilot Capitano (
After stops at various cities in South America including
After a stop at
They then flew through Louisiana,
The new plane – identical to the Santa Maria – arrived in New York by ship on 1 May 1927, and, after reassembly, was christened Santa Maria II on 8 May. Following a revised schedule Pinedo drew up that eliminated all stops west of the
Pinedo, Del Prete, and Zacchetti flew on to the Dominion of Newfoundland. On 22 May, they departed Trepassey Bay, planning to cross the Atlantic to the Azores, refuel, and then fly on to Portugal, retracing the transatlantic route of the United States Navy Curtiss NC-4 flying boat in 1919, but they ran low on fuel due to unfavorable weather. Pinedo was forced to land the Santa Maria II on the ocean and be taken under tow by a Portuguese fishing boat and an Italian steamer for the final 200 miles (322 km) to the Azores, where the plane arrived at Horta on May 30.[7][12]
After a week of repairs, the three Italian aviators were airborne again in the Santa Maria II, flying back to the point in the Atlantic where they had been taken under tow, and then finishing their transatlantic flight from there. After stops in Portugal and
Mass-formation flights
Regia Aeronautica
Later career
After the "Four Continents" flight, Pinedo increasingly carried out duties in diplomatic and administrative posts that kept him out of the headlines. Balbo's prominence in the Italian Fascist movement meant that Pinedo's break with him led to declining fortunes for Pinedo in his Regia Aeronautica career.
Fearing that he would fall into obscurity and wishing to pursue long-distance flights by single aircraft of the type that Balbo would not support, Pinedo resigned from the Regia Aeronautica in 1933. He traveled to New York City under the pseudonym "Mr. Smith," purchased a Bellanca monoplane, and let it be known that he intended to fly nonstop from New York to Baghdad, Iraq, to set a new world nonstop flight distance record of some 6,300 miles (10,100 km).[13]
Death
When Pinedo attempted to take off from
At New York, memorial services for Pinedo were held at
External links
- "The Lord of Distances" bio page
- Site of links relating to his flights
- Newsreel from September 3, 1933 showing fatal New York to Baghdad takeoff attempt on YouTube
- Italian aviator Francesco De Pinedo dies in fiery crash during takeoff in his Bel...HD Stock Footage on YouTube
References
- ^ a b Anonymous, "De Pinedo Dies in Flames as Ocean Plane Crashes," Youngstown Vindicator, September 2, 1933, Page 1.
- ^ a b Canadian Press, "Pinedo Burned to Death," The Sunday Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia), September 2, 1933, Page 1.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j aeronautica.difesa.it Il portale dell'Aeronautica Militare: Francesco De Pinedo, il trasvolatore
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "italystl.com The Lord of Distances: Biographical Background: Francesco de Pinedo". Archived from the original on February 9, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
- ^ aero-mondo.fr Le Monde de l'aviation De Pinedo Francesco
- ^ ISBN 1-55297-849-4, p. 40.]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l italystl.com De Pinedo's Milestone Flights Australia - Japan - America Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c "Anonymous, "Italian Flight to Tokyo Accomplished," Flight, October 1, 1925, p. 644". Archived from [http:// the original] on February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
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value (help) - ^ a b c "Anonymous, "Rome-Tokyo-Rome: Marquis de Pinedo's Grand Air Tour Successfully Concluded," Flight, November 12, 1925, p. 756". Archived from [http:// the original] on February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: Check|url=
value (help) - ^ Anonymous, "Pinedo's Big Flight," Flight, February 27, 1927, p. 87.
- ^ "DE PINEDO SWEEPS INTO NEW ORLEANS; Italian Airman Flies the 700 Miles from Havana in 6 Hours and 15 Minutes". The New York Times. March 30, 1927.
- ^ Anonymous, "Pinedo's Progress," Flight, June 2, 1927, p. 360.
- ^ a b c d e f g italystl.com The Forgotten Hero Archived 2012-02-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ O'Connor, Derek, "Italy's Consummate Showman," Aviation History, July 2014, pp. 50-51.
- ^ a b Pelitti, Enrico, "A EULOGY OF FRANCESCO DE PINEDO, THE FORGOTTEN HERO" Archived 2016-03-07 at the Wayback Machine
Bibliography
- Longo, Don (Donato), "'A Feat Without Parallel,: Pioneer Italian Aviators Fly to Adelaide, 1925", Italian Cernevale Magazine (Adelaide, South Australia, 2014), pp. 54–55.
- Uphaugh, Johnny de (January 2013). "Francesco de Pinedo: Lord of the Distances". The Aviation Historian (2): 14–25. ISSN 2051-1930.