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The origins of modelling aircraft in Turin

In 1945, just after the war, FIAT established the company's Central Students' School to train and retain its staff. The students' educational activities complemented the company's after-work activities, which were organized into dedicated groups. At the time, Umberto Bertolo, father of Aeromedia's editor-in-chief, worked in the payroll office at Corso Dante 103, where the FIAT Central Student School was located. Mr. Guido Fea, Umberto's colleague and head of the "Gruppo Aeromodellisti FIAT" that he had helped to found in 1949, convinced him to join the group's technical committee. The model airplanes were "certified", that is, measured and weighed, before each race. At the time, the results of these competitions were judged based on the distances achieved and the recorded flight times. The models, constructed of balsa wood with tissue-paper-covered wing and tailplanes, were hand-launched with propellers powered by rubber bands or propelled by compressed gas.

One of the competition venues was none other than the new Turin/Caselle Airport. On a cold and foggy autumn day in 1955, the entire Bertolo family headed to the "Città di Torino" Airport, which had been inaugurated on July 30th two years earlier. The tent for the model builders and the certification bench were in a meadow not far from the control tower. The operation was complex and delicate, effected alongside the participants. The future editor-in-chief of Aeromedia kept his distance with his mother, perhaps wondering if flying was a natural inclination to indulge in.

In the picture: In the photo: "certification" of the model airplanes of the "Gruppo Aeromodellisti FIAT" before the November 1955 competition. Mr. Guido Fea is the one with the hat, and Umberto Bertolo is on the right, next to the man in the beret. (Bertolo Photographic Archive)

(Aeromedia, November 2025)