General Corradino D'Ascanio was an Italian aeronautical engineer. D'Ascanio designed the first production helicopter, for Agusta, and designed the first motor scooter for Ferdinando Innocenti. After the two fell out, D'Ascanio helped Enrico Piaggio produce the original Vespa.
He was chief engineer at Piaggio, a company that long before moving into the production of scooters had been a leading name in Italian aeronautics.
In his later years, Ing. Corradino D’Ascanio briefly consultied for Agusta and afterwards designed and constructed a helicopter for agricultural purposes.
The Vespa
The main stimulus for the design style of the proposed Lambretta dated back to Pre-WWII Cushman scooters made in Nebraska, USA. These olive green scooters were in Italy in large numbers, ordered originally by the US Government as field transport for the Paratroops and Marines. The US military had used them to get around Nazi defence tactics, destroying roads and bridges during the Battle of Monte Cassino and in the Dolomites and the Austrian border areas.
