Auktion168-02-Philatelie_Flug&Zeppelinpost

16
Italian Airmail History |
Massimo Trenta
General Gaetano Arturo Crocco was a key figure in the development of aerodynamic
science in Italy and around the world. He began his research with studies on the stability
of airships and concluded them in the middle of a project to take human beings into
space.
INTERNATIONALE AUKTION 168
GAETANO ARTURO CROCCO
FROM AIRSHIP TO SPACE
Gaetano Arturo Crocco (b. Naples, 26 October 1877; d. Rome, 19 January 1968) was
an Italian officer, scientist and teacher and a pioneer in aeronautics and rocket propulsion.
He obtained his degree as an electrical engineer in 1904. During his academic career
he published 170 scientific studies, registered 30 patents ranging from aerostatics to
navigation and from aeronautics to missiles, and invented approximately 50 different
tools for aeronautics.
As a protagonist in the story of Italian and world aviation, his journey ranged from the
dawn of the airplane and airship to the time of the first space explorations. In 1956,
in the last years of his career, he became a NASA consultant, planning interplanetary
travel with extremely precise calculations. One of his space mission projects between
Earth and Mars is known as the Crocco Grand Tour. His greatness as an aeronautical
scientist is internationally recognized. The asteroid 10606 Crocco and the Crocco crater
on the moon are named after him. He also had a brilliant military career.
On October 3, 1908, at the experimental site of Vigna di Valle on Lake Bracciano, he made the very first test flight of the first
Italian military airship, N-1, designed by then-Lieutenant Crocco and Lieutenant Ottavio Ricaldoni. The N-1 flew over Rome on
October 31, 1908, making a huge impression. In 1909, in part because of this success, Crocco was promoted to the rank of captain.
Crocco became a professor and then rector at the Aeronautic Engineering School at the University of Rome in 1926, which still
exists under the name of Engineering School Aerospace.
In 1935 he organized the Volta Congress, which saw the arrival of
the world's leading aeronautics experts in Italy and which was the
prototype for the great post-war aerospace congresses. He became
a member of the Accademia d'Italia and the Accademia Nazionale
dei Lincei.
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In the meantime, he devoted himself to academic activities, first
as a teacher and then as principal of the School of Aeronautical
Engineering, a position he held from 1935 to 1942 and from 1948
to 1952, the year in which Luigi Broglio took over. During these
years of research and teaching, Crocco invented and had numerous
innovative systems and tools built, to the point that the rhyme
"Everything I see or touch, invented Arturo Crocco" spread among
his students.
In the years following the Second World War, Crocco the aeronautical genius, who had left the air force before the conflict with the
rank of general inspector, was mainly interested in missiles and astronautics. In 1951, together with the earliest Italian experts in
the discipline, he founded the AIR (Italian Rocket Association), of which he was the president until 1959. Although by this time he
was over 70 years old, he actively devoted himself to the dissemination of space exploration.
To foster interest in space initiatives – which materialized with the International Geophysical Year, after decades of speculation
that existed only in science fiction stories – an international event was organized in Rome on September 15, 1956. For the first
time, in fact, on the initiative of Crocco’s AIR organization, the Congress of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) was
held in Italy. It was the largest-ever assembly of scientific and technological specialists engaged in the sector, which at the time was
mainly linked to missiles and only peripherally to the world of satellites and other future creations.