The EC-40/61 Eventuale glider is one of the last cases of an independent design built by a small company, a traditional business model that became gradually extinct, in the 1960s.
Edgardo Ciani (born in 1922), the graduate engineer who had already designed the EC-38 Urendo and EC-39 Uribel gliders, conceived the EC-40 in reply to an Aero Club of Italy requirement for its National Gliding Center in Rieti. The result was a two-seat glider of all wooden structure and covering, which Ciani initially called the “Innominato” (“Nameless”).
Construction was entrusted to Felice Gonalba (1931-2007), who had already built the other Ciani designs for the Experimental Gliding Section (SSVV) of the Milan Gliding Association (AVM). In 1960 the SSVV was spun off from the AVM, becoming the company sometimes known as “Gonalba Workhops’ Based at Milan-Linate airport, for about half a century the small SSVV enjoyed an excellent reputation in the construction, repair and support of light and vintage aircraft.
The glider flew in July 1963 under the name “Eventuale” (“Possible”), but never went into production.
I-CNVR, the EC-40 on display here, is the first of the two built but has construction number 17 in the sequence originated at the AVM. It was bought by the Aero Club of Italy and used at Rieti. It was rebuilt at Ferrara after an accident and ended its career in the early 1980s in Lucca. Briefly with the Leonardo Da Vinci technical school, it was rescued by Roberto Burchi in the hope of restoring it to flying condition, Entrusted to the Museo dell’Aeronautica in 2008, it was restored by AREA in its original colors.