54/2022 – IMOLA, FERRARI CHALLENGE: ITALIAN AIR FORCE EUROFIGHTERS FLY OVER THE ENZO E DINO FERRARI CIRCUIT
A pair of Eurofighter fighter jets, bearing the prancing horse emblem on their fuselage, will fly over the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Autodrome tomorrow, Sunday 30 October, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Ferrari Challenge.
A pair of aircraft Eurofighter The 4th Fighter Wing of the Air Force will fly over the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Racetrack in Imola tomorrow afternoon, Sunday 30 October, for the Ferrari Challenge World Finals.
For around 100 years, the prancing horse binds the stable inextricably Ferrari and the’Italian Air Force, a union that has its historical roots in the First World War, with the deeds of the Ace of Aces of aviation, the Major Francesco Baracca.
Precisely for this reason, to celebrate this special union, the Italian Air Force wanted to take part in this important sporting event with a flyover by two fighter jets which, just like the SPAD S.XIII At Baracca, they painted the prancing horse on the fuselage, a symbol that still characterises the Air Force's flying units today, which daily ensure the Air defence national and NATO.
Specifically, these are interceptor fighters Eurofighter belonging to the 4th Fighter Wing of Grosseto.
Once again, the bond between the world of motorsport and the Italian Air Force is renewed. Engines and speed, but also technology, innovation, and above all, team spirit – these are the key elements that unite the Air Force's flying squadrons and motorsport racing teams.
FACT SHEET – The story of the Prancing Horse
The prancing horse – silver in colour on a red field, facing left and with its tail lowered – was the heraldic emblem of the “Piemonte Reale Cavalleria”, one of the most prestigious units of the Italian Army, which Francesco Baracca served in at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The young horseman soon wanted to become an aviator, and it was precisely his love of horses that led him, in the following years, to choose to adopt, albeit with some variations, the same emblem as a symbol for his aeroplanes. The black prancing horse first appeared on an aeroplane piloted by the ace in early 1917 and definitively became the insignia applied to the fuselage of the aircraft he piloted within the newly formed 91st Squadron.
On 19th June 1918, Francesco Baracca did not return from a war flight over Montello, and his body was found only a few days later next to the burnt wreckage of the SPAD he was flying.
From that moment on, it was the parents of the Ace who kept his memory alive, and it was a meeting – on 16 June 1923 during the Savio Circuit – between Francesco Baracca's father, Enrico, and a young Enzo Ferrari (at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo at the time) that paved the way for what would become a worldwide legend.
That meeting was followed by one between Francesco’s mother and the Modena-based manufacturer, to whom Countess Paolina Biancoli donated the precious emblem, accompanying it with these words: “Ferrari, put the prancing horse of my son on your cars. It will bring you luck.”.
“I still keep the photograph of Baracca, with the dedication from his parents who entrusted me with the emblem” – Enzo Ferrari wrote on 3 July 1985 to the historian from Lugo, Giovanni Manzoni – “The prancing horse was and remains black; I added the canary yellow background, which is Modena's colour”.
The Prancing Horse reappeared as the emblem of the 91st in the 1920s, before being definitively consecrated as the insignia of the 4th Stormo of the Regia Aeronautica by order of Amedeo d'Aosta, who commanded it at the time. The same emblem was also used for a period on Ducati motorcycles, at the request of the then designer Fabio Taglioni, originally from Lugo di Romagna. The Prancing Horse still flies on the tail fins of the Italian Air Force's Eurofighters and, as is well known, races on Maranello's cars.
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