A ground crewman aid a pilot of an Italian fighter aircraft Fiat CR.42 to get ready for the flight. Note the very few military dress of ground crewman and the pilot in shorts but wearing the Marus, the classic flying jacket of Italian pilots during the WW2, and also after the war, and the back parachute Salvator, standard in Italian Air Force of WW2 and used also in the years soon after for the propeller planes. The dress, and also the white helmet, indicate a location very hot, like the Libya, Summer 1940. Victor Sierra

Italian fighter pilot

Instructor, in rear seat, and student, in forward seat, at one of Fighter Schools of Italian Regia Aeronautica in time immediately near or soon after the entry of Italy in the war. The aircraft is a Fiat CR.30B, two-seat version of fighter CR.30, the immediate precursor of CR.32. Victor Sierra

Instructor and student

Foligno’s Fighter School, Umbria, Central Italy, 1942 or 1943. A warrant officer pilot instructor give the last advices at his student in process to taking off with a Macchi MC.200 employed like trainer for fighter pilots. The aircraftman, who has assisted the student to accommodate in the cockpit and to fasten one’s seat belts, get ready to control the correct locking of the transparent panels of flight deck prior to jump off from the wing. The large red number on the fuselage (162) is the individual aircraft’s number and not the unit’s code. In the old Italian Air Force the warrant officers were the backbone of flying school and thousands of Italian pilots they are under this “terrible” figures. Victor Sierra