The Vigna di Valle Museum will take part in the virtual re-enactment of the epic 1918 flight over Vienna led by D’Annunzio. The event forms part of the cultural initiatives coordinated by the Vittoriale degli Italiani to mark the 150th anniversary of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s birth. Several crews of virtual pilots will “take to the skies” from seven different locations across the country, all linked to the figure of the Vate, and will “reach” Vienna in formation. In order to make the re-enactment as faithful as possible to the actual feat, the flight will be carried out using the highest level of realism permitted by the software and employing the navigation methods of the time – namely, visual flight navigation, using a compass and a watch, with the aircraft controlled exclusively by hand. The flight will be recreated using Microsoft Flight Simulator X and the Ansaldo S.V.A. model created by Manuele Villa. It will be possible to follow the re-enactment from the following locations: the Vittoriale degli Italiani; Abruzzo International Airport, thanks to the collaboration of the city of Pescara, the birthplace of the “Vate”; the Museo dell’Aria in San Pelagio, from whose airfield the aeroplanes bound for Vienna took off on 9 August 1918; the Gianni Caproni Aeronautical Museum in Trento and the Historical Museum of the Italian Air Force in Vigna di Valle, which house two of the original S.V.A.s from the flight to Vienna; the “Francesco Baracca” Museum in Lugo di Romagna and Casale Monferrato, the town where Captain Natale Palli was born – the pilot who flew Gabriele d’Annunzio to Vienna. Fly Story, an association that re-enacts d’Annunzio’s flights and routes in real life and brings together various pilots, will also take part in the event, with a presentation, at Pescara’s Abruzzi International Airport, of documents and photographs from the flights to Vienna undertaken in 1998 and 2008. At each venue, historians, pilots, aviation enthusiasts and virtual pilots will also be present to answer questions from the public and to recount lesser-known aspects of a feat that remains memorable to this day, particularly due to the propaganda impact it had. The Vigna di Valle Historical Museum, as well as preserving, in the best possible condition, the most significant aircraft ever operated by the Italian Air Force – including those used in the period prior to its foundation – enthusiastically contributes to the commemoration of historical aviation events. Furthermore, to mark this occasion, the Museum has organised two guided tours, at 11.00 and 14.30.
