Gianni Caproni had begun his experiments in the field of aviation in 1908. In that year, together with his
Romanian friend and colleague
Henri Coandă, he designed and built a
biplane glider whose flights took place in the surroundings of Blaumal (in the
Ardennes) and were largely successful, leading Caproni to carry on his aeronautical studies. In 1909 he met several aviators and aircraft designers in
Paris, where he also witnessed the flights of some of the most recent aeroplanes. While still in
France, Caproni began designing his first engined aircraft. In June 1909, after going back to
Italy, he made an attempt to collect the money he needed to build the machine in
Alessandria; however, he didn't manage to convince the local investors of the worthiness of his projects. It was only in December, after spending a period of time in
Belgium in order to complete his specialization in
electrical engineering, that Caproni went back to his hometown,
Arco, and was finally able to gather some collaborators, thanks to whom he would begin the construction of the experimental biplane that was going to become known as the Caproni Ca.1. Between December 1909 and the first few months of 1910, Caproni worked on the construction of the Ca.1 in an improvised workshop which he had set up inside a warehouse with the help of three
carpenters. However, because of the lack of any surface suitable for having an aircraft
take off and
land in
Trentino, Caproni decided to move to
Lombardy in order to carry out the test flights. He thus joined his elder brother, Federico (who had graduated from the
Bocconi University of
Milan shortly before), and asked the
Arma del Genio (the
military engineering corps of the
Esercito Italiano) for permission to settle at the
cascina of
Malpensa, in semi-desert area which at the time was in use as a training ground for the cavalry. The permission was granted and so, after building a
hangar close to the
cascina, on 5 April 1910, the two Caproni brothers and their collaborators, Ernesto "Ernestin" Gaias and Ernesto "Erneston" Contrini from Arco, moved to Malpensa. The four men were going to spend one year living in primitive accommodation and working in the hangar, which also served as a workshop. There were no comforts and the project of building and flying the Ca.1 was very demanding from both a technical and financial point of view. However, Caproni was later to think back to the first period he spent in Maplensa as a time of happiness and peace of mind.
aviation museum, not far from
Malpensa Airport. Note the fan engine, the fuel tank, the twin pulling propellers and the pilot's position. The aircraft was assembled in a few weeks, but Caproni still had to find an
engine and a
pilot. He tried to solve the first problem by buying an engine built by the recently founded Miller company of
Turin; the engine wasn't expensive and the Trentine engineer was glad to use an Italian-built piece of technology, because of his
irredentist sentiments; however, the four-cylinder W engine proved quite unreliable and was apparently unable to run smoothly for more than a few minutes at a time. The aircraft was ready for the first test flight in May 1910. ==Design==