page_title: Alessandro Cagno
section_title: Aviation
hierarchical_section_title: Alessandro Cagno / Aviation
caption_attribution_description: English: Cagno Cobianchi and Cei at Pordenone 1910
context_page_description: Alessandro Umberto Cagno, Umberto Cagno, nicknamed Sandrin was an Italian racing driver, aviation pioneer and powerboat racer.
  Apprenticed at 13 to a Turin engineering factory he was later recruited by Giovanni Agnelli as employee number 3 at F.I.A.T., where he progressed to be a test driver, Agnelli's personal driver and works racing team driver. In 1906 he won the inaugural Targa Florio in Sicily after switching to the Itala team.
  Cagno co-founded 'AVIS-Voisin' to build Voisin aircraft under licence. He designed and tested aircraft, founded Italy's first flying school in Pordenone, and was the first person to fly above Venice. After volunteering as a pilot for the Italo-Turkish War in Libya he invented a bomb aiming device.
context_section_description: By 1909 Cagno had lost interest in racing and turned to aviation, gaining his pilot's licence and becoming the instructor at Cameri about 90 km northeast of Turin.
  In October 1909 Cagno collaborated with two engineers at Cameri, Clovis Thouvenot and Gino Galli, to establish 'AVIS-Voisin' (Atelier Voisin Italie Septentrionale), to build Voisin aircraft under licence. With these aircraft he competed in the Brescia-Montichiari event.
  He both designed and tested aircraft, also founding Italy's first flying school at Pordenone in 1910.
  In Venice on 19 February 1911, Cagno made six flights in his 50 hp Farman III from the beach at the Lido di Venezia despite the fog. The plane had been transported in pieces from Pordenone and assembled on the skating rink of the Excelsior Hotel. On 3 March he made the first flight over the city and continued daily until 6 March, the last day of Carnival. A passenger was selected by public lottery,  the winner sold his ticket to a lawyer named Casellati.
  After volunteering for the Italo-Turkish War in Libya in 1911, he built the first Italian bomber (or "added a grenade launcher"(or a crude aiming device consisting of an angled surface or tube)).
caption: Cagno, Cobianchi and Cei at Pordenone 1910
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