AEROMEDIA
The Italian Aerospace Information Web
by Aeromedia - corso Giambone 46/18 - 10135 Torino (Italy)

GAVS Torino Restored the SVA 10 of Gabriele d’Annunzio

In March 2012, the Turin Branch of GAVS (Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici - Historical Aircraft Preservation Group), performed preservation activities on the SVA 10 aircraft, exhibited at the Gabriele d’Annunzio Museum - called “Il Vittoriale degli Italiani” - in Gardone Riviera (North Italy). With this aircraft, flown by Natale Palli, the famous Italian poet led the 87th Squadron in a leaflet-dropping raid over Vienna, on August 9, 1918.
More than 20 years ago, the GAVS Torino was involved in two other preservation activities on the same aircraft: first, in 1988 - in cooperation with the Alessandria Branch of GAVS (under the guidance of the late Prof. Francesco Carrer) - they undertook a thorough cleaning and some small repairs as well as regenerative and conservation activities on various parts of the aircraft. Other relics which had lain in the Vittoriale depots were also restored, allowing them to be exhibited. Worthy of mention are the remarkable restorations of the SVA 10’s SPA 6A engine, of an extremely rare example of the 1918 highly advanced winged “Guidoni-Crocco” bomb and of a number of parts from other WWI aircraft. On that occasion, it became finally possible to ascertain that the aircraft preserved at the Vittoriale was indeed an Ansaldo SVA 10. This was the period when the aircraft was meticulously measured, allowing its true dimensions to be established for the very first time.
In 1989, the GAVS Torino returned to Gardone Riviera, this time to install a number of missing parts on the SVA. There were copied from another SVA which had been discovered in the United States and bought by the then Aeritalia. In particular, bracing wires were added to the struts, restoring the original wing geometry. At the same time, the seriously-damaged copper overwing auxiliary coolant tank (“nourrice”) was removed and taken to Turin. In the GAVS workshops it underwent a complex repair to return it to its original shape.
Specifically to reinstall the nourrice, complete with a faithful replica of its original fuel cap, the GAVS Torino proposed to the “Vittoriale” that a further session of preservation work on the aircraft, which had remained suspended for 23 years in the museum’s Auditorium should take place. The proposal was quickly and enthusiastically accepted.
The activity, whose materials cost was borne by the Vittoriale, also included a checkup of the aircraft’s general condition, its complete cleaning, some minor repairs due to the ravages of time and the application of various preservation products, both to the airframe and in the cabin. At the same time, a replica of a missing part of the fuselage port side external fairing was manufactured and installed. This aluminium fairing, designed to protect the engine control rods, was unique to d’Annunzio’s SVA 10.
The return of the SVA 10 to its near-original state, as it was in 1918, is most certainly a great step forward in the conservation of one of the most important veteran aircraft in the history of Italian aviation.
The GAVS Torino is a non-profit organization whose mission is the recovery and preservation of Italian aviation heritage. Since its inception in 1985, it has undertaken work on a number of aircraft of significant historical interest, such as the SPAD VII fighter flown by the Italian WWI Ace Francesco Baracca (on show in the Baracca Museum, Lugo di Romagna, Italy), an Ansaldo A1 Balilla fighter, flown by the famous Italian aviator Antonio Locatelli (exhibited in the Carpentry Museum, Almenno San Bartolomeo, Italy), a Fiat G 55 WWII fighter (exhibited in the Italian Air Force Museum near Rome) and a Stinson L-5 Sentinel which served in a USAAF unit during the D-Day Landings, to name but a few.
A number of other “in house” static restoration programmes are currently ongoing, such as those on Francis Lombardi’s Avia FL.3, a training and touring aircraft of the late ‘thirties, a rare Piaggio P.136l-1 amphibian and an experimental autogyro of the ‘sixties. The sole existing CVT-2 Veltro record-breaker sailplane, designed in the ‘50s by the Morelli brothers, has been recently entrusted to GAVS Turin and is included in the list of future projects.
With a fair number of historic aircraft, engines, parts and a rich collection of aviation documents in its inventory, GAVS Torino is currently doing its best to encourage the establishment of an Aviation Museum and Library in Turin, one of the cradles of Italian Aviation.

In the picture: Vittoriale degli Italiani, Italy. The Ansaldo SVA 10 reconnaisance biplane used by Gabriele d’Annunzio to lead the 87th Squadron in the famous raid over Vienna, at the end of the preservation work performed by GAVS Torino in March, 2012. (Aeromedia)

(Aeromedia, April 2012)