R.Abate,G.Alegi,G.Apostolo Aeroplani Caproni: Gianni Caproni and His Aircraft, 1910-1983

In 1908-9 Caproni met in Paris many students of flight and aviation pioneers, witnessing many flight attempts. He thus began thinking about his first powered aircraft, which he started building in Arco with the limited help of three carpenters equipped with a saw, hammers and a chisel.
   The lack of adequate flying areas led Caproni to transfer his base of operations to Lombardy, aided in this by his brother Federico, who had meanwhile graduated from Milan’s Universita Bocconi. The move from Arco to Cascina Malpensa, in the Gallarate prairie, was made in early April 1910. Facilities were again limited, amounting to a single, dilapidated wooden workshop. The two Caproni brothers and their two Arco workers Ernesto Gaias and Ernesto Contrini, known to friends as Emestin (little Ernest) and Emeston (big Ernest), took up residence there.
   The biplane was completed in such primitive conditions, with the straightened financial circumstances contributing to the difficulties. Flying activity with the first biplanes was as frequent as possible but, in Gianni Caproni’s own words, “because of the pilots’ inexperience every flight meant breaking the aircraft at the telling moment of landing”.