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Volandia is a fairly new aviation museum, established in 2010. It’s located inside the area that was used by Caproni Vizzola, an aircraft factory very active between the world wars, at walking distance from Malpensa International Airport terminal 1.

It’s a fairly unique and really fascinating location, walking across the hangars you get a feeling of what an airplane factory looked like during the thirties.

The area also offers plenty of space where the display can be expanded in the future, among other things there is a plan to cover motorbikes as well.

The collection is already worth the visit, even if it’s not yet comparable to other major museums. Augusta- Westland and Alenia-Airmacchi contributed more than a few artifacts, the helicopters are especially notable. There are also a few, unique, vintage planes from the Caproni family (even if the bulk of that collection is in Trento).

www.volandia.it/

AgustaWestland AW609 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

Agusta A104 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

Agusta AB47G by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

AgustaWestland AW109 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

I feel cheated. I used to fly into and out of Malpensa Term 1 all the time (pretty much from the day it opened, previously using Linate). Then AA suspended their direct flights because traffic fell off for years after Sept. 11. Flights were restored again ~2007, but by then I was nearing retirement so didn't get to use it much...it's the way I'd always gone to Firenze (which I did, often) because they had a dinky airport so I'd take the train from Milan. If this museum had existed then, I'd have made a point of visiting!

Doug, time to fly again, this time just for leisure

Massimo

I guess you don't see this plane that often outside Italy or Brasil. This hangar contains a few pretty cool jets, with MB 326, MB 339, SIAI 211 and DH Vampire. Recentely they added a series of colored lights that may create an interesting effects, but also make any photographer's life miserable. This shot is from 2012, before the fancy lights were added:

AMX by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

Breda Nardi NH-500 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

- Massimo_Foti

Breda Nardi NH-500 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

Wow....that's an actual "Loach" (OH-6A "Cayuse" in U.S. service) and not a gussied up MD500 "Little Bird". I wonder if this was acquired new or post Vietnam? Italy is generally not listed as an "official" operator of the type in the armed forces. Here's one "in service".

www.grubby-fingers-air...round.html

This one was build in Italy under license, see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...0#Variants

Italy isn't listed as operator, because it wasn't used by the Italian Army, this is used by "Guardia di Finanza":
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...di_Finanza

Massimo

- Massimo_Foti

This one was build in Italy under license, see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...0#Variants

Italy isn't listed as operator, because it wasn't used by the Italian Army, this is used by "Guardia di Finanza":
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...di_Finanza

Massimo

Interesting. I knew Bell helicopters were built under license by Agusta, but didn't know any (then) Hughes aircraft were licensed there.

- JG300-Ascout

Interesting. I knew Bell helicopters were built under license by Agusta, but didn't know any (then) Hughes aircraft were licensed there.

It was Breda-Nardi, you may remember Breda for a few WW II planes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_Ba.65
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_Ba.88

Plus artillery tractors, guns and machine guns:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_M37

Before and during WW II, Nardi was famous for its light aircraft like:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nardi_FN.305

After WW II Nardi was acquired/merged into Breda and later they started building Hughes helicopters under license. Only at a very later stage Breda's aviation branch was acquired by Agusta.

Massimo

- Massimo_Foti

Breda Nardi NH-500 by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

Holy Cow! I actually have an unpublished repaint of Fr8ycat's OH-6 Cayuse for FS2004 using that exact aircraft and color scheme! I never did get a good image of the graphic on the upper cowling .You wouldn't happen to be able to zoom in on that would you?

You can see the image in its original size here:
www.flickr.com/photos/...6/sizes/o/

Hope it may help

Massimo