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Gianni Caproni

Gianni Caproni, Count Di Taliedo, (1886-1957) was an Italian aircraft engineer and builder. He was born at Massone d'Arco, near Trentino, [Austrian territory at the time] on 3 July 1886 and died in Italy on 14 October 1957. The Count designed and built several World War I and World War II aircraft which included the first tri-motor plane and the first Italian Jet aircraft. A few of his firsts are arming aircraft with torpedoes, provided first aircraft to Italian Army, supplied first bomber aircraft of World War I, and first to build concrete airfield. Caproni is probably best remembered for the "giant" aeroplanes of his earlier years and for the Caproni-Campini N.1, the world's first jet-propelled aircraft to fly.

The name Caproni is an honored one in the annals of aviation. Italy's oldest and, at one time, largest aircraft manufacturer, the Caproni group comprised more than 20 companies, of which the principal aircraft building members were Aeroplani Caproni Trento, Caproni Aeronautica Bergamasca, Caproni Vizzola SpA, Compagnia Nazionale Aeronautica, Aeronautica Predappio SpA, and Officine Meccaniche Reggiane SpA. The Isotta-Fraschini aero- engine company was also part of the group.

Caproni graduated in civil engineering at the Technical University of Munich in 1907, a year later he earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Institute Montefiori of Liège, and he studied aeronautics at Paris. After a series of early experiences in the construction of aircraft engine in 1908 founded to Taliedo, near Milan Linate, Caproni workshop for the production of biplanes. His first aircraft, a biplane, flew in 1910, and from 1911 he concentrated rather more successfully in the production of monoplanes. During 1912 and 1913 his first monoplane achieved a series of speed and distance records, and it was followed by a long line of large bomber and other aircraft.

The first aerial force projection occurred on Nov. 1, 1911, when Lt. Giulio Gravotta, flying a German-built Etrich Taube monoplane, dropped one bomb on Zard and another on Taciura -- in Libya -- during the Italian-Turkish War. This event occurred little more than a year after the first flight of an Italian-designed and built aircraft. At about the same time, Gianni Caproni, a young Italian engineer with a passion for innovation and a vast admiration for the Wright brothers, built his first flying machine.

The Italian firm bearing the name Caproni, along with Sikorsky in Russia, first flew heavy multiengine bombers in the year 1913. In 1914 Caproni produced the first three-engined biplane to be used as a bomber aircraft. By the outbreak of the First World War, in August 1914, Caproni had produced about 30 different designs and had become Italy's leading aircraft designer and manufacturer. Caproni bombers were used throughout World War I, not only by Italy but by England and France as well. Production of one version of a Caproni bomber was also planned in the United States but had not materialized at war's end.

All Caproni bombers had three engines. Two of these were mounted in a tractor arrangement, with one engine at the nose of each of two fuselagelike booms that connected the wings and tail assembly. The third engine was a pusher installed in the rear of a nacelle situated between the wings. Pilot and gunner-bombardier were in cockpits ahead of the pusher engine. The rear gunner(s) was located in several different positions in the various Caproni bomber designs.

The three-engine configuration not only gave the Caproni designs adequate power for heavyweight takeoffs, but provided a margin of economy and even safety since the aircraft could easily maintain flight with just two of the engines operating. An early maintenance, assembly and flight manual for the aircraft mentions: "When the desired attitude has been reached, start the machine flying at a level by turning to normal velocity of the indicator of relative velocity. If it is not desired to make great speed, it is well to stop one engine (preferably the rear one) and proceed on two engines. Thus there will be a slight decrease in speed, but a large saving in fuel. In this latter case, the speed of the machine as read on the relative speed indicator should be that of the climbing speed. The stopping of a lateral engine, or the difference in traction due to poor working of an engine, can be corrected by the vertical rudder alone."

The 600 horse power Caproni was a triplane with two fuselages or bodies, and driven by three Fiat or Isotta-Fraschini motors, any one of which has sufficient power to keep the craft aloft even were the others to be disabled. The machine is of both the tractor and pusher type, for two propellers are mounted in front and one in the rear. The plane carries a so-called useful load of 4,408 pounds, which assures fuel for six hours, together with a crew of three men, three guns, and 2,750 pounds of bombs. It had a speed of close to eighty-five miles an hour and is capable of climbing 3,250 feet in thirten minutes, 6,500 feet in twenty-seven minutes, and 10,000 feet in fifty-seven minutes. This seems slow in comparison to the Spads, which climb 10,000 feet in five minutes or less; but a Spad is simply a flying motor, with sustaining strength barely sufficient to support the aviator and a gun. The Caproni is as big as a trolley car. Its wing span is more than 100 feet. It stands twenty-one feet in the air and it is nearly fifty feet long. The only aircraft which compares with it in size was the British Handly-Page machine.

The year 1917 saw the introduction of the Ca. 33, which was essentially a Ca. 32 re-engined with 150-hp Isotta Fraschini engines -- they improved both climb and airspeed. Moreover, the I-F engines were generally more reliable than the 100-hp FIAT engines they replaced. It was the Ca. 33 and its subtype, the Ca. 36, which provided the backbone of the Italian bombing efforts for the remainder of the war. Other more powerful Caproni-designed bombers were produced during the 1917-1918 period, including a massive triplane, and a 600-hp enlargement of the Ca. 33, but none of these really exceeded the combination of load, range and reliability that were characteristic of the earlier aircraft.

Both biplane and triplane bombers were built by Caproni, with the number of biplanes produced far outnumbering the triplanes. About 200 Caproni bombers of all types were manufactured, of which about 30 were triplanes. In Italian service, these aircraft were extensively used for bombing targets in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Such raids originated in Italy and required round-trip flights across the Alps. Good high-altitude performance was accordingly an important design requirement.

Caproni had extensive communication with General Giulio Douhet (1912-1934) in respect to their ideas regarding the development of air power. Caproni advocated strategic bombing during the war and built aircraft to support that view. Caproni provided a well-developed rationale for bombing such enemy targets as industrial plants, port facilities, railway bridges, junctions, and marshaling yards as a way to eliminate an enemy's capability to sustain a war effort. The Caproni Series 4 triplane bomber was much larger than the earlier Ca 3 although its performance was not markedly better.

In the United States, both Handley-Page and Caproni types of bombing planes were included in the modified recommendations of the Joint Army and Navy Technical Board on Nov. 21, 1917, and these recommendations were approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. Although the Handley-Page and Caproni planes remained in the program, production was delayed. In August, 1917, the Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, had placed orders with the Italian Government for a large number of Capronl bombing planes. From August, 15)17, until May, 1918, continuous and increasing efforts were made to effect delivery of these planes from the Italian Government, but without result. The constant argument employed by the Italian Government regarding nondelivery of these planes was to the effect that delivery of the planes could not be made until receipt in Italy of raw materials from the United States, although under the US contracts with Italy no agreement had been made which bound the United States to furnish materials. Italian engineers were thoroughly competent, and Italian designers notably inventive but they lacked the coal and metal needed for quantity production. They had to rely to some extent on their allies who had been more amply provided with resources. They furnished in return inspiring ideas and admirable designs, so that Mr. Handley-Page and Signor Caproni vied with each other and with Mr. Holt Thomas in the construction of great cargo-carrying machines.

Simultaneously with learning of the Navy's plans for independent bombing operations on the western front, I also learned through MnJ. LaGuardia, in charge of Air Service matters in Italy, that the Navy was arranging with Italy for the purchase of a considerable number of Caproni bombing planes for use in their bombing operations. Upon investigation, it was learned that the Navy had planned to bring certain amounts of materials from the United States to Europe on Navy supply ships in order to help Italy insure her aeroplane production. The Army Air Service not having a fleet of supply ships at its disposal was therefore badly handicapped in its efforts to secure Italian aeroplanes, even though our orders had been placed with the Italian Government eight months before the Navy entered the market.

In the minutes of the Aircraft Board, under date of Feb. 12, 1918, it was recited that the Italian manufacturer Caproni had sent to this country samples of his triplane and biplane, with his production engineer, Captain D'Annunzio, expert fliers, and thirteen factory experts, to assist the United States in placing Capronis into production. On Feb. 7 the board had recommended that a contract be made with the Standard Aircraft Corporation for the manufacture of fifty Caproni planes. It was urged on Feb. 20 that plans be laid for quantity production of Capronis to be assembled in Italy, but it was the feeling of the board that the matter should be held in abeyance until the production of sets of Caproni parts for the Italian Government were under way. Contracts were made in June, 1918, by the Fisher Body Corp. and the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corp., each for 500 Capronis. There appears to be no adequate reason for this long delay in putting the Caproni planes into production. If it was due to congestion in plants selected for production this could have been obviated by a better and wider distribution of work. This is, of course, so far as the matter of plane production is concerned. The immaturity of the Liberty motor doubtless had its effect, but it would seem that orders for the motors sufficient to meet all appropriate demands should have been distributed in such a way that there could have been no occasion for delay in the building of planes because of the lack of orders for the engines to go with them.

Upon learning of this arrangement by the Navy to secure priority on Capronl planes, the Chief of Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, protested against this unusual competition, and for a period the amicable relations between the Air Services of the Army and Navy in Europe were In danger of being broken. The matter was finally adjusted by the Navy agreeing to a division of the aeroplanes which might be obtained from the Italians, but up to the date of the armistice the Army Air Service had not received a single Caproni plane for front-line service, whereas the Navy had received a small number.

Caproni was among the proponents of the use of aircraft for the transport of passengers "civilians". By 1919 Caproni had built a 30-passenger triplane incorporating cellular construction and powered by three engines totalling 1,000 hp. He also produced gliders. Reports from Rome, Italy, stated that Caproni was considering the construction of a giant plane which would carry 300 persons across the Atlantic in about 36 hours. Plans for the machine are now being completed, and provisions are being made for dining and sleeping accommodations on board the aerial liner. A smaller airplane designed by Signor Caproni was to make its first trial trip in January 1921 at the Caproni factory near Lake Magglore. This airplane was to be capable of carrying 100 persons a distance of 500 miles. Work on the trans-Atlantic plane was to be started as soon as this smaller liner has been tested. This seaplane prototype was destroyed in a fire - the projected 100-passenger machine was abandoned.

In the interval between the two world wars, Caproni company assumed the dimensions of a real industrial group, which earned him the appointment as count of Taliedo. In 1930 the largest bomber in existence was the Caproni Ca. 90P.B, powered by six 1.000 h.p. engines. World height records were established in 1937 and 1938 by Lt-Col. Mario Pezzi in Caproni Ca. 161 biplanes. By the late 1940s the absolute height record stands to the credit of the American balloon which in the 1930s attained 72,395ft, and the heavier-than-air record was held by an Italian Caproni biplane which reached 56,032ft in October, 1938. The greatest height claimed by 1947 for a jet aircraft was 51,000ft, attained at Boscombe Down by a Nene-Vampire prototype.

Gianni Caproni's compilation, Gli aeroplani Caproni. Studi, progetti, realizzazioni dal 1909 al 1935 (Milan, 1937), which traces the development of Caproni aircraft from the original 1909 Ca 1 biplane to the Ca 133S monoplane which went into production in 1937.

The Italian aircraft designer Luigi Stipa (1900-1992) contended that his Stipa-Caproni experimental aircraft, a ducted-fan design of 1932, was the first aircraft to employ what he called an "intubed propeller" -- essentially the motorjet principle -- and that he therefore deserves the credit for the invention of the jet engine. The Caproni-Campini N.1 did employ many of the principles first tested in the Stipa-Caproni aircraft, albeit in a more advanced form. It was the first flight of the Caproni-Campini N.1 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as the C.C.1 or CC.2) in August 1940, however, that ensured for the name of Caproni a significant place in the history of aviation. This was the first aircraft to fly by jet propulsion (although not powered by a true turbojet engine: a conventional radial was used to drive the axial compressor). A combination of piston and jet engines had been used to drive a single aircraft on several occasions in the past. The earliest suggestion for the combined use of two dis-similar power units came from Campini, of the Italian Caproni Company, although in this case the small radial engine, driving an air compressor, was an essential component of the combination jet power unit. The Caproni-Campirri N.1, did have a form of jet-propulsion, but instead of the turbine of the true turbojet, it had an in-line piston engine as a power source for the compressor. The Caproni-Campini jet first flew on August 27th, 1940, and reached a speed of 441 mph. In December 1941 it made a much-publicized flight from Milan to Rome. The unit had a designed thrust of 1,000 lb. and comprised an axial flow hiducer, a radial outflow compressor, an annular, reverse flow combustion chamber and a radial inflow turbine. Constructed purely for experiment and test, the aircraft provided useful data for subsequent productions. Although a novel design, it showed no great technical advance and its performance was poor. Great propaganda use was made of the aircraft by Benito Mussolini and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale recognized this at the time as the first successful flight by a jet aeroplane.

The Caproni organization embraced a large group of member companies prior to the liquidation of the parent company in 1950. One of these subsidiaries, Aero Caproni Trento, continued in existence to produce the Caproni F.5 jet trainer, which-powered by a Turbotneca Palas and designed by Ing. Stelio Frati-first flew in May, 1952. The Company's last vestige, the Caproni Vizzola subsidiary, survived until 1983. The Caproni C-22J is an Italian twin-engine two-seat jet designed by Carlo Ferrarin in the late 1970s. In 1983, the Caproni family sold the business to Agusta. The C22J program was canceled in 1988 as Agusta considered the (Agusta division's) Siai Marchetti S-211 more suitable for the jet training market.