Alpine gateways, Mediterranean coasts, island runways.
Turin sits where the Alps begin. Four lines run from it: north-east over the mountains to Salzburg, south-west across the sea to Barcelona, south-east to Naples, south to Olbia — and from Olbia, one more to Cagliari. Around the hub and each end of the line, a smaller aircraft flies a ring of the places the lines don't reach — some of them city fields, some mountain strips and island runways, valleys with a single approach. Twenty-three places, one hub, and the kind of flying the big carriers left behind.
Every flight gives you an impression and a challenge.
We did not draw this map for the accountants. A route earns its place by what it leaves with you — the valley on short final, the bay closing on both wings — and by what it asks of you to fly it well. Beauty and difficulty, on the same approach.
This is 1985. No magenta line, no moving map — needles, charts, and the weather out the window. We fly into the folds of the Alps and down to the edge of the sea, mostly on propellers, into the fields the big iron will never see. The föhn spills off the mountains, and we ride it.
Turin Caselle sits where the Po valley runs out of flat — the western corner of the plain, the Alps at its back, the Mediterranean a short reach south. A hub by geometry, not by size: equidistant from mountain and sea, clear of the giants' shadow — Milan and Vienna stay off our board, and Rome only through its small back door.
From here four bearings open cleanly, no two fighting for the same air. North-east into the Alps. South-west across the sea to Barcelona. South-east, down the length of Italy, to Naples. South to the islands — and from Olbia, one more line down Sardinia to Cagliari.
Five lines hold the network's spine. The BAe 146 when the cabin fills, the Fokker when it doesn't — real traffic, the routes that keep the lights on so the rings can be beautiful.
An hour and change into the Alps. The ski-gateway and the festival town; a circling arrival to RWY 33 with the Untersberg on your shoulder.
AIRCRAFT · BAe 146-300 / Fokker F-27Out over the Ligurian Sea and across the Gulf of Lion, landing on the Catalan coast with the city laid out below the wing.
AIRCRAFT · BAe 146-300 / Fokker F-27The longest line, down the spine of Italy to the bay. Vesuvius on the descent, the city climbing the hills around you.
AIRCRAFT · BAe 146-300 / Fokker F-27Across the Tyrrhenian to the Costa Smeralda. Sardinia's granite coast, and the doorway to the island ring.
AIRCRAFT · BAe 146-300 / Fokker F-27Down the length of Sardinia, granite to salt flats, from the north of the island to its capital.
AIRCRAFT · EMB-110 BandeiranteOff each anchor, a ring of short, sharp legs — the places a jet can't reach and a timetable can't justify. Flown low, flown slow, flown for the view. Five rings, six aircraft.
The alpine home ring; STOL fields and steep glides the bigger aircraft won't take.
AIRCRAFT · DHC-6 Twin OtterBoth sides of the main ridge — the Inn valley, the Carinthian lakes, the Danube, the Dolomites.
AIRCRAFT · Saab 340Across the Apennines to the other sea and back, with a mountain field under the Gran Sasso on the way.
AIRCRAFT · Shorts 330The Catalan coast, a hop to the Balearics, a Pyrenean valley and a walled city over the border.
AIRCRAFT · Dornier 228North across the water to Elba, west across the island to Oristano; the Porter takes the few who won't wait.
AIRCRAFT · EMB-110 Bandeirante + PC-6 PorterEight arrivals off the board where the flying is the reason. Difficulty by colour — moderate, moderate-high, high.
The Inn valley narrows to a slot and the airport sits at the bottom of it, mountains on three sides. There is no straight-in worth the name; you fly the terrain, not the localiser, and you keep your speed where you can still turn. A category-C field that humbles jets — we send the Saab, and it earns its keep.
An IGS glidepath of 6.65° — nearly twice the standard slope. You come down the hillside toward a 1,420-metre strip like you mean it, drag the power, and hold the picture. Get it wrong high and you float long; get it wrong low and the terrain is right there.
The north-east end of the line, but the arrival is its own reward: a circling approach to RWY 33 with the Alps filling the windscreen, the Untersberg off the nose, the city below. Fly it in winter and the whole valley is white.
A valley floor between two walls of the Alps, a strip you reach by flying the terrain in and climbing the terrain out. Short, high, and unforgiving of a lazy energy plan — a STOL field, locked to the little aeroplanes forever.
The valley runs west to the roof of Europe, and the field lies along its floor. A steep instrument glide brings you down between the walls, and when the cloud sits low you finish with a circle to land, the highest peaks of the Alps somewhere in the white above you. Forty miles from the hub, and nothing about it is short.
A localiser and a DME bring you down through the cloud into the valley, and then the rest is yours: rock on both sides, a short strip ahead, the Dolomites waiting in the clear. Enough runway for the Saab; not a metre to waste.
A field at the bottom of the Segre valley, the Pyrenees on every side and Andorra just up the road. Few people ever ask to go there, and we fly it anyway — the one stop on the Barcelona ring kept for the view. Come on a clear morning and you'll see why.
The ring's longest leg — over a hundred miles of open water from Olbia — ends on its shortest runway, a strip in the green behind the bay at Marina di Campo, hills close on either side. Hand-flown, and on a summer afternoon there is nothing better in the network.
Jets come next. The MD-82 and the Boeing 757 are the next step — longer legs out of Turin and more seats where the lines run full. One day, further out, a TriStar on the long, straight hub-to-hub legs. The heart of the map stays alpine; the jets buy the range.
An invitation, not a sales pitch. Come fly the map while it's still taking shape.
