On July 27th, 1914, pilot Achille Landini, together Giuseppe Lampugnani, performed the first flight across the Alps with a passenger. This great achievement took place the day before the outbreak of 1st Word War and was soon forgotten because of the more serious events of that moment.
The flight was performed in an Italian plane, a Gabardini simlilar to the one shown above and equipped with a 80 hp Rhone engine. The plane took off from Cameri, near Novara(Italy) and landed in Vi?ge,i n the Rhone valley of Switzerland.
90 years later, on September 4th 2004, with the support of the Francis Lombardi Association (Francis Lombardi was a flying ace during the 1st W.W) two Italian pilots, Maurizio Steffanini and Adriano Perardi, repeated the feat. The flight was made to commemorate the names of Landini and Lampugnani as well as more famous ones like Chavez and Palli, who unfortunately died during their attempt of flying across the Alps.
The commemorateiveflight was performed in a CASA Bucker Jungman with a 125 hp Tigre engine.
The take-off was from Biella(Italy), a town which is not far away from Cameri, and the landing in Raron, near Vi?ge.