The first military use of a lighter-than-air vehicle by the Armed Forces dates back to 1888. The ‘Specialist Engineer Company’, renamed the ‘Specialist Company of Africa’, with aerostat service was sent to Eritrea, an Italian colony, following the unfortunate battle of Dogali. Between January and March of 1888, three balloons were transported: the Serafino Serrati with a volume of 180 m3, the Alessandro Volta and the Francesco Lana, both with a volume of 240 m3. The main task of the Company, deployed around Massaua, was to monitor the movements of Abyssinian troops from above through controlled ascents with balloons tethered to a 500-metre cable.
Subsequently, after the first flight of the Wright brothers’ ‘Flyer’ in 1903, aviation began a rapid development that saw the first-ever use of aircraft in reconnaissance and bombing actions during the 1911 Libyan War. Only three years later, during the Great War, aviation played a crucial role in observation and bombing, and the exploits of Fighter Aces such as Baracca, Scaroni, Piccio, Baracchini, Ruffo di Calabria, and Ranza, were narrated in the magazines of the time, fuelling popular imagination. The demands of wartime undoubtedly accelerated the development of the new aerial weapon, considered the weapon of the future. Along with the production of increasingly efficient flying machines, the philosophy of its use, pioneered by Giulio Douhet, was born, and has proven its validity up to the present day.
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