J.Davilla Italian Aviation in the First World War. Vol.3: Aircraft M-W (A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes 75)

Pegna

  Giovanni Pegna in 1905 applied to enter the Naval Academy in Livorno. He was accepted in October 1905, and in March 1909, was appointed a Lieutenant of Naval Engineers in April of the same year. Also in 1909 he built several interesting models, including the biplane glider Pegna I, and the Pegna 2, a monoplane flying boat with, with engine 1 hp, two-cylinder engine driving a four-bladed propeller. This second model, however, was destroyed at the end of its first flight.
  In 1911 he obtained a degree in marine engineering at the Royal Naval School in Genova, and in September of that year he was named the head of the repair works for shipboard seaplanes in use by the Italian Royal Navy Arsenal at La Spezia.
  At the beginning of 1912 he was promoted to capitano del Genio Navale (captain of Naval Engineers). It was in La Spezia in 1912 that Pegna made his first airplane flight as an observer. He learned to fly on a single-seater Curtiss-Robinson seaplane of the Regia Marina.

  Pegna 3 - Pegna later modified the Curtiss seaplane and designated it Pegna 3. After numerous sea taxying trials, during which he learned to control the aircraft, he progressed to a series of short jumps, and then took off alone. On April 4,1913 in the Gulf of La Spezia tenente Calderara, with tenenti Ortalda and Pegna as passengers, made the first three-man seaplane flight in Italy.
  While making a series of flights aboard the seaplane on 3 August, Pegna crashed into the sea. Pegna was rescued and the aircraft was recovered and taken to the Naval Arsenal.
  On 15 November 1913, in Venice, Pegna applied for a patent for his new seaplane design. On December 3, 1913 he flew Curtiss seaplane from La Spezia to Livorno. In 1913 and in 1914, at the Arsenal of La Spezia, he built two types of seaplanes whose production was limited to only two prototypes.

  Pegna 4 - a single engine monoplane with floats. The prototype was destroyed during an attempt to take off when it collided with a boat.

  Pegna 5 - a single engine monoplane with floats, which was fitted with number of different engines including a 100-hp Gnome 14-cylinder motor. Subsequently he tried a 90 hp Salmson 7-cylinder water cooled radial. The aircraft would have to be autostable, since the fuselage hung “underneath" the wing and could be moved in the longitudinal direction with respect to it. The seaplane was completed and made several flights but with disappointing results.

  Pegna also developed a maritime blimp which remained, an unbuilt project.
<...>