This Week’s Hints to help you along:
- To our knowledge, the only aircraft in history ever traded in exchange for coffee beans.
- First successfully flew across the Atlantic several months before Charles Lindbergh.
- Extra credit offered if you can translate the naval flags.
So do you know what this plane is?
Siai-Marchetti S-55
In 1927 one (the Santa Maria) flew from Rome to West Africa, across the Atlantic to South America, on to Havana, finally ending in the lake at Roosevelt Dam where it was lost in a refueling fire.
In 1933 a fleet of 24 S-55’s flew to Chicago for the World’s Fair. Balbo Drive in Chicago is named for General Italo Balbo, who led the fleet to Chicago.