On 27 March 1914, the engineer Ermanno Bazzocchi was born in Tradate, the designer of the famous Macchi aeronautical trainers.
His career as a designer already began during his studies in Mechanical Engineering at the Milan Polytechnic, where he graduated with full marks, with the EB-1 "Littore" glider.
Officer of aeronautical engineering, he remained firmly and perhaps even politically aligned in favor of this, even long after his discharge, which led him to join the Macchi Air Force in Varese in 1941.
“M” like Macchi and “B” as Bazzocchi in the initials of the creations resulting from this magical union (not only airplanes, but also means of transport on the road such as the Macchi MB1 three-wheeler which offered a means of work to those who could not afford a truck after the war but who did not consider it sufficient due to load capacity a Piaggio “Ape”) seal a long-lived and successful union.
In the aeronautical field, from the MB.308, a small touring plane known as the "Macchino" (1947) to the magnificent MB-323, MB-326 and MB-339 trainers (the latter still adopted today by the national aerobatic team), the acronym MB has sailed and still sails the skies all over the world, often leaving a colorful trail in the national aerobatic teams (Frecce Tricolori, Al Fursan, Telststars Acrobatic Team and The Roulettes).
As with other particularly successful projects that came out of the drawing board of an Italian engineer, he designed various developments of his most important projects, even going so far as to hypothesize an MB-320 six-seat executive transport aircraft, which however remained a project, and projects that anticipated (although roughly speaking) the AMX and the T346.
In Aermacchi Bazzocchi held the technical management and also came to become managing director. He did not stop collaborating with the Milan Polytechnic and with the University of Bologna, branch of Forlì which awarded him an honorary degree in aerospace engineering, and with prestigious technical associations in the aerospace branch.
He is remembered, among other things, also for his technical expertise on the Ustica case, in defense of the Air Force, where he argued theses that would otherwise be rejected.
Photo: Mike Freer / web
