page_title: Caproni Ca.60
section_title: Test flights
hierarchical_section_title: Caproni Ca.60 / Test flights
caption_attribution_description: English: The Caproni Ca.60, Gianni Caproni's ambitious nine-winged prototype airliner, is towed to shore on the Lake Maggiore after crashing on March 4, 1921, at the end of its second test flight.Italiano: Il Caproni Ca.60, l'enorme prototipo di idrovolante noviplano a otto motori da trasporto passeggeri di Gianni Caproni, viene trainato a riva da un rimorchiatore dopo essere precipitato nel lago Maggiore poco dopo il decollo nel corso del suo secondo volo di prova, il 4 marzo 1921.
context_page_description: The Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo, often referred to as the Noviplano or Capronissimo, was the prototype of a large nine-wing flying boat intended to become a 100-passenger transatlantic airliner. It featured eight engines and three sets of triple wings.
  Only one example of this aircraft, designed by Italian aviation pioneer Gianni Caproni, was built by the Caproni company. It was tested on Lake Maggiore in 1921: its brief maiden flight took place on February 12 or March 2. Its second flight was March 4; shortly after takeoff, the aircraft crashed on the water surface and broke up upon impact. The Ca.60 was further damaged when the wreck was towed to shore and, in spite of Caproni's intention to rebuild the aircraft, the project was soon abandoned because of its excessive cost. The few surviving parts are on display at the Gianni Caproni Museum of Aeronautics and at the Volandia aviation museum in Italy.
context_section_description: The Transaereo was taken out of its hangar for the first time on January 20, 1921, and on that day it was extensively photographed. On January 21, the aircraft was scheduled to be put in the water for the first time, and a cameraman had been hired to shoot some sequences of the aircraft floating on the lake. Because of the low level of the lake and of some difficulties related to the slipway that connected the hangar with the surface of the lake, the flying boat could not reach the water. After receiving De Siebert's authorization, the slipway was lengthened on January 24, and then again on 28. Operations were carried on among problems and obstacles until February 6, when Caproni was informed that 30 wing ribs had broken and needed to be repaired before the beginning of test flights. He was infuriated, and kept his employees awake through the night to allow the tests to begin on February 7. The ribs were fixed, but then a starter was found broken, causing Caproni's frustration, so that the tests had to be postponed again.
  On February 9, finally, the Transaereo was put in the water its engines running smoothly and it started taxiing on the surface of the lake. The pilot was Federico Semprini, a former military flight instructor who was known for having once looped a Caproni Ca.3 heavy bomber. He would be the test pilot in all the subsequent trials of the Transaereo; no tests were going to be performed with more than one pilot on board.
  Always keeping on the water surface, the aircraft made some turns, then accelerated simulating a takeoff run, then made other maneuvers in front of Gianni Caproni and other important representatives of the Italian aviation in the 1920s: Giulio Macchi and Alessandro Tonini of Nieuport-Macchi, Raffaele Conflenti of SIAI. The tests were soon interrupted by the worsening of the weather conditions, but their outcome was positive. The aircraft had proved responsive to the controls, maneuverable and stable; it seemed to be too light towards the bow and at the end of the day some water was found to have leaked inside the fuselage, but Caproni was satisfied.
  On the next day, after reconsidering some of his calculations, Caproni decided to load the bow of the Transaereo with ballast before carrying out further tests, in order to keep the aircraft from pitching up excessively.
  More taxiing tests were successfully carried out on February 11. On February 12 or March 2, 1921, the bow of the aircraft loaded with 300 kg (660 lb) of ballast, the Transaereo reached the speed of 80 km/h (43 kn; 50 mph) and took off for the first time. During the brief flight it proved stable and maneuverable, in spite of a persisting tendency to climb.
  The second flight took place on March 4. Semprini (according to what he later recalled) accelerated the aircraft to 100 or 110 km/h (54–59 kn, 62–68 mph), pulling the yoke toward himself; suddenly the Transaereo took off and started climbing in a sharp nose-up attitude; the pilot reduced the throttle, but then the aircraft's tail started falling and the aircraft lost altitude, out of control. The tail soon hit the water and was rapidly followed by the nose of the aircraft, which slammed into the surface, breaking the fore part of the hull. The fore wing set collapsed in the water together with the nose of the aircraft, while the central and the aft wing sets, together with the tail of the aircraft, kept floating. The pilot and the flight engineers escaped the wreck unscathed.
  Caproni, coming from Vizzola Ticino by automobile, was delayed, and only arrived on the shore of Lake Maggiore after the Transaereo had crashed. He later commented, "So the fruit of years of work, an aircraft that was to form the basis of future aviation, all is lost in a moment. But one must not be shocked if one wants to progress. The path of progress is strewn with suffering."
  At the time, the accident was blamed on two concurrent causes. First, the wake of a steamboat that was navigating on the lake close to the area where the Transaereo was accelerating was thought to have interfered with the takeoff.
caption: The wreck of the Transaereo is towed to shore after the accident, on March 4, 1921. The boat may be the same that interfered with the aircraft's takeoff, possibly causing it to crash.
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