Anniversary: The Decennale Cruise — Return to Ostia, August 12, 1933

On August 12, 1933, the Crociera aerea del Decennale closed where the journey had begun forty-three days earlier: Italo Balbo’s S.55X aircraft landed at Ostia, after Chicago, New York and the return route via the Azores and Lisbon. The return had its own casualty too: in the landing at the Azores, one aircraft capsized, killing a lieutenant. It is the toll of an enterprise that remains, nearly a century on, the largest formation flight ever completed.

Anyone wanting to see up close what an S.55X looked like can do so: at Volandia, near Malpensa, a full-scale teaching reproduction of the double-hulled aircraft has been under construction for around ten years and is now nearly complete — the photograph above shows it in the summer of 2026.

The story of the departure base is told in the page for the Orbetello seaplane base; the cruise’s departure has its own anniversary on July 1.