Issue No 21 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 51
to the Centro Sperimentale (CS — Test Centre),
the RAQ reported to the Direzione Superiore
degli Studi e delle Esperienze (DSSE — High
Directorate of Studies & Experimentation).
By 1930 a substantial programme was under
way at Montecelio to build a comprehensive
research and test centre, to be named Guidonia
in honour of Italian pioneer aviator and engineer
Alessandro Guidoni. The RAQ was so closely
entwined with the CS that its few pilots might,
on paper, be assigned to the latter while serving
with the former — or the other way around.
In January 1936 the RAQ had a mixed bag of
aircraft on strength, including the record-setting
ABOVE A classic of the genre, Nello Voltolina’s
1934 Futurist painting Glorificazione della terra
(“Glorification of the Earth”) celebrates the aeroplane
as a symbol of progress and modernity, using
abstract forms to evoke high-altitude flight, a popular
aspiration in 1930s Italy. Ironically for one whose early
career idealised the aeroplane, Voltolina (also known
as Novo) was killed in a church during an air raid on
Padua in March 1944.OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP The sole AQV, serial MM.422,
as built, with a faired fixed undercarriage. The AQV
was the only aircraft designed by Giuseppe Schepisi,
the majority of his career with the Regia Aeronautica
being spent writing military aircraft design rules
and specifications that remained in use for several
decades. ARTWORK BY RUGGERO CALÒ © 2017