{"id":1524184,"date":"2026-06-04T10:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/nine-wings-lago-maggiore-caproni-ca60-transaereo\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:01:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:01:47","slug":"nine-wings-lago-maggiore-caproni-ca60-transaereo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/nine-wings-lago-maggiore-caproni-ca60-transaereo\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine Wings on Lago Maggiore: The Caproni Ca.60"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\nIt is January 1921, and a crowd has gathered on the shore of Lago Maggiore near Sesto Calende. They are staring at a houseboat. Or a cathedral. Or perhaps a floating lumber yard that has sprouted wings \u2014 nine of them \u2014 and eight bellowing American engines. The thing is 77 feet long, 30 feet tall, and looks like three Caproni bombers crashed into a Venetian ferry and nobody bothered to separate the wreckage. Its creator, a 35-year-old Italian count named Giovanni Battista Caproni, says it will carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nHe is not joking.\n\nThe Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo \u2014 known variously as the Noviplano, the Capronissimo, or simply &#8220;that thing on the lake&#8221; \u2014 is one of the most audacious, beautiful, and doomed aircraft ever conceived. It flew exactly once and a half, crashed spectacularly, and has haunted aviation historians, model-builders, and Hayao Miyazaki ever since.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:20px 0 28px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;color:#333;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts \u2014 Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Designer:<\/strong> Giovanni Battista &#8220;Gianni&#8221; Caproni<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Built:<\/strong> 1919\u20131921, Sesto Calende, Lake Maggiore, Italy<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Configuration:<\/strong> Nine wings (three tandem triplanes), eight Liberty L-12 engines, flying boat hull<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Power:<\/strong> 8 &times; 400 hp Liberty L-12 V-12s = 3,200 hp total<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Wingspan:<\/strong> 30.5 m (100 ft)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Length:<\/strong> 22.6 m (74 ft)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Wing area:<\/strong> 750 m&sup2; (8,100 ft&sup2;)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Max takeoff weight:<\/strong> 26,000 kg (57,320 lb)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Capacity:<\/strong> 100 passengers + 8 crew<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>First flight:<\/strong> 12 February or 2 March 1921 (sources disagree)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Status:<\/strong> Destroyed on second flight, 4 March 1921<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Survivors:<\/strong> Hull fragments at Museo dell&rsquo;Aeronautica Gianni Caproni (Trento) and Volandia (Varese)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Bomber-Builder Dreams of Airlines<\/h2>\n\nGianni Caproni had made his name building heavy bombers for the Italian military during the First World War. His Ca.3 and Ca.4 triplanes were among the largest aircraft of the conflict \u2014 multi-engine beasts that dropped ordnance on Austrian trenches while their crews froze in open cockpits. When the war ended and the military contracts evaporated, Caproni faced a choice every arms manufacturer knows: pivot or perish.\n\nHe pivoted toward the sky. As early as 1913 \u2014 aged just 27 \u2014 Caproni had told the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport that &#8220;aircraft with a capacity of one hundred and more passengers&#8221; would soon become a reality. Now, with hangars full of surplus bombers and a workforce of skilled carpenters and riggers, he decided to prove it.\n\nThe idea was radical. In 1919, no airline carried more than a handful of passengers. Converted bombers served as airliners, their bomb bays refitted with wicker seats. Caproni&#8217;s vision was different: a purpose-built airliner, designed from the keel up for civilian comfort and transatlantic range. He patented the concept on 6 February 1919.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=340794390  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:SAvu.bf5c\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/caproni-ca60-panoramic-cabin-windows-1921.jpg\" alt=\"Caproni Ca.60 on Lake Maggiore showing three wing sets and panoramic cabin windows, 1921\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Caproni Ca.60 on Lake Maggiore, 1921. Three wing sets, panoramic cabin windows, and the stubborn conviction that more wings equals more lift. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nHis critics were vocal. Giulio Douhet \u2014 the Italian air-power theorist who would later write <em>The Command of the Air<\/em> \u2014 dismissed the project as dangerous folly. Caproni ignored him. He had his own theory of aviation economics: investing in a flying boat that could hop from lake to lake, river to river, harbour to harbour would be cheaper than building roads across China or railways across South America. He wrote that a letter from New York to Buenos Aires took a month; his flying boat could do it in four days.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Nine Wings and a Prayer<\/h2>\n\nThe design was, by any standard, extraordinary. Caproni took three complete sets of triplane wings \u2014 each salvaged from his own Ca.4 heavy bombers \u2014 and mounted them in tandem: one set forward, one amidships, one aft. Each wing had a 30-metre span. Nine wings total. The total wing area was 750 square metres \u2014 roughly the floor space of a large apartment.\n\nEight American-built Liberty L-12 engines, the most powerful production engines of the Great War at 400 horsepower each, were arranged in two groups of four. The forward group sat beneath the front wing set; the rear group beneath the tail wings. Each group had a central nacelle with two engines in push-pull configuration and two outboard single-engine nacelles. Total power: 3,200 horsepower.\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=1414517389815918592&#038;theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:400px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\nThe fuselage was a proper hull \u2014 a boat, essentially, with panoramic cabin windows and wooden bench seating for 100 passengers arranged in facing pairs. There was even a lavatory at the rear. The pilots sat in an open cockpit above the cabin roof, their heads and shoulders poking through the top of the fuselage. Below them, two flight engineers sat in the engine nacelles, adjusting throttle settings via an electrical signal system of lights and indicators.\n\nCaproni had thought about safety, too. The flying-boat configuration meant it could ditch on any calm body of water. Multiple engines meant that losing one would not be fatal. He claimed the aircraft could &#8220;be flown with just one hand on the controls.&#8221; He had even considered backup engines that could be shut off at cruising altitude and restarted in emergencies.\n\nWhat the aircraft did not have was a horizontal stabiliser. Pitch was controlled entirely by differential ailerons \u2014 the front and rear wings working against each other. This was, as events would prove, a significant omission.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Into the Water<\/h2>\n\nConstruction began in the second half of 1919 at a purpose-built hangar on the shore of Lago Maggiore at Sesto Calende. Parts arrived from subcontractors across northern Italy. By late 1920, the US Ambassador to Italy, Robert Underwood Johnson, came to inspect the growing behemoth and left impressed. The Italian press confidently announced that test flights would begin in January 1921.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1456159931  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:qZFp.bf5d\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/caproni-ca60-outside-hangar-sesto-calende-1921.jpg\" alt=\"Caproni Ca.60 outside its hangar at Sesto Calende on Lago Maggiore, April 1921\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Ca.60 outside its lakeside hangar at Sesto Calende, April 1921. The scale is staggering &mdash; 30 feet from keel to wingtip. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nReality intervened. The lake was too low for the slipway. Thirty wing ribs broke and needed emergency repair. A starter motor failed. Caproni, furious, kept his workers up all night. On 9 February the Transaereo finally touched water, its engines running, test pilot Federico Semprini at the controls. Semprini was a good choice: a former military instructor famous for having once looped a Caproni Ca.3 heavy bomber \u2014 a feat roughly equivalent to barrel-rolling a school bus.\n\nThe initial taxi tests went well. The aircraft was responsive, manoeuvrable, stable on the water. It did tend to pitch up at the bow, so Caproni loaded 300 kilograms of ballast forward. On 12 February (or possibly 2 March \u2014 sources disagree), Semprini pushed the Transaereo to 80 km\/h and it lifted off the lake. The flight was brief but stable. Caproni was satisfied.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Ninety Seconds of Glory, Then the Lake<\/h2>\n\nThe second flight came on 4 March 1921. The weather was clear. Semprini opened the throttles. At 100 km\/h the Noviplano hauled itself into the air \u2014 and immediately pitched up into a dangerously steep climb. Semprini cut power. The tail dropped. The nose rose further. The aircraft stalled, hung for a sickening moment, then slammed tail-first into the surface of Lago Maggiore.\n\nThe front third of the hull shattered on impact. The forward wing set collapsed into the water. The central and rear sections stayed afloat. Semprini and both flight engineers scrambled out, unhurt.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1527417981  decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:qZFp.bf5d\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/caproni-ca60-interior-passenger-cabin-1921.jpg\" alt=\"Interior of the Caproni Ca.60 passenger cabin, April 1921\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The passenger cabin of the Ca.60, photographed in April 1921. Wooden benches for 100 passengers, panoramic windows, and a lavatory at the rear &mdash; all of it destroyed in under two minutes of flight. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nWhat went wrong? At the time, two theories emerged. First, the wake of a passing steamboat may have disrupted the takeoff. Second, Semprini may have pulled the yoke too aggressively, pitching up without enough speed to sustain flight. A more convincing modern theory points to the sandbags: loaded into the cabin to simulate passenger weight, they were not secured to the seats. When the nose pitched up, 300 kilograms of sand slid to the back of the fuselage, shifting the centre of gravity aft and making recovery impossible.\n\nBecause the photographer was riding in the same car as Caproni \u2014 who was late, driving from Vizzola Ticino \u2014 no photos exist of the takeoff, the flight, or the crash. Plenty were taken of the wreckage.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;So the fruit of years of work, an aircraft that was to form the basis of future aviation, all is lost in a moment. But one must not be shocked if one wants to progress. The path of progress is strewn with suffering.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Giovanni Battista Caproni<\/strong> &mdash; after arriving at Lago Maggiore to find his Transaereo destroyed, 4 March 1921<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\nCaproni arrived at the lake to find his dream in pieces. He estimated repairs at one-third of the original construction cost. The wreck was towed to shore \u2014 and the towing itself caused further damage, as water flooded the hull and the remaining wing sets buckled. Within days, Caproni was already sketching modifications. He proposed building a quarter-scale model to continue testing. Prime Minister Ivanoe Bonomi promised funding. But Italian politics moved on, the money never came, and the Transaereo was quietly abandoned.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Ghost in the Museum<\/h2>\n\nMost of the wreckage was scrapped. But Caproni \u2014 a man with a keen sense of history \u2014 saved what he could. The forward hull section, both outrigger floats, a Liberty engine, and a control panel survived. They followed Caproni&#8217;s private aviation museum through decades of relocations until finally settling at the Museo dell&#8217;Aeronautica Gianni Caproni in Trento, where they remain today. A section of one of the triangular truss-booms and a hydrofoil are displayed at the Volandia museum near Milan, in the very factory buildings where Caproni built aircraft during the war.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=205848787  decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:1NKx.bf5e\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/caproni-ca60-hull-museo-caproni-trento.jpg\" alt=\"Surviving front hull section of the Caproni Ca.60 at Museo Caproni in Trento, Italy\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The surviving front hull section of the Ca.60 at the Museo dell&rsquo;Aeronautica Gianni Caproni in Trento. All that remains of the nine-winged dream. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nThe Ca.60 also lives on in an unexpected place: Hayao Miyazaki&#8217;s 2013 film <em>The Wind Rises<\/em>, where Caproni appears as a recurring dream figure, encouraging the young protagonist to build beautiful aircraft regardless of how they might be used. Miyazaki \u2014 an aviation obsessive \u2014 clearly saw something in the Transaereo that went beyond its failure. Something about the scale of the ambition, the refusal to think small, the willingness to put nine wings on a houseboat and dare it to fly.\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rwa9unx9mpQ\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Beautiful Disaster<\/h2>\n\nWas the Ca.60 a failure? Obviously. It flew for under two minutes and was destroyed. Its pitch-control system was fundamentally flawed. The sandbag problem was a rookie oversight. No transatlantic flight was ever going to happen.\n\nBut calling the Transaereo a failure misses the point. In 1921, the idea that an aircraft could carry 100 people anywhere was science fiction. The world&#8217;s airlines were flying biplanes with four seats. Caproni was designing for a future that would not arrive until the Boeing 707 \u2014 thirty-seven years later. He got the engineering wrong. He got the vision right.\n\nThe path of progress is, as he said, strewn with suffering. And occasionally, with nine wings floating in a lake.\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4BDcUjQ9MPk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<em>Sources: Gregory Alegi, &#8220;The castle door, the mooring pylon and the Transaereo&#8221; (WW1 Aero, 2006); Rosario Abate, Gregory Alegi &amp; Giorgio Apostolo, Aeroplani Caproni (Museo Caproni, 1992); Enzo Angelucci &amp; Paolo Matricardi, Guida agli aeroplani di tutto il mondo (Mondadori, 1976); Museo dell&rsquo;Aeronautica Gianni Caproni; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum<\/em>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/ugliest-aircraft-ever-built-that-actually-flew\/\">The 10 Ugliest Aircraft Ever Built (That Actually Flew)<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/strangest-and-weirdest-planes-on-earth\/\">Strangest and Weirdest Planes on Earth<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is January 1921, and a crowd has gathered on the shore of Lago Maggiore near Sesto Calende. They are staring at a houseboat. Or a cathedral. Or perhaps a floating lumber yard that has sprouted wings \u2014 nine of them \u2014 and eight bellowing American engines. The thing is 77 feet long, 30 feet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1524063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nine Wings on Lago Maggiore: The Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 1921, Gianni Caproni built a nine-winged flying boat on Lake Maggiore to carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic. 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