Lieutenant Colonel Cosimo Rennella Barbatto (1890–1937) was an Ecuadorian World War I flying ace of Italian birth.
While there, his name was changed to fit the pattern used in many Spanish-speaking countries to be Cosimo Rennella Barbatto by appending his mother's maiden name, though he was usually called "Cosme".
[2] He finally qualified for his civil pilot's license at Turin's Chiribiri flying school on 24 August 1912.
[1] By the time Rennella and his two traveling companions returned to Central America with an aircraft, the first flight in Ecuador, which was by Chilean Eduardo Molina Lavín, had taken place in their absence.
Rennella's new aircraft was a copy of a French Nieuport, built by Navaro and Valgoi of Torino, Italy.
On 15 December 1912, having been forbidden to fly across the Isthmus of Panama by U. S. officials, he flew an unauthorized flight in this aircraft over Panama City, leafletting the town with fliers thanking the populace for their support of his flight, in what may have been the first aerial pamphlet drop in history.
Once there, he accepted the obligation of returning to Italy for more training while he supervised the manufacture of a Chiribiri monoplane for his Club sponsors.
[2] He used his time in Italy to qualify for an Italian military pilot's license, which was granted at Turin on 25 July 1913.
Between 24 September 1917 and 31 August 1918, as he flew with 78a Squadriglia of the Corpo Aeronautico Militare, he scored seven confirmed aerial victories,[3] having 11 other claims go unconfirmed.
[4] By the time Rennella reportedly left the Corpo Aeronautico Militare in March 1919, he had been honored with two awards of the Silver Medal of Military Valor and the War Merit Cross from Italy, the French Croix de guerre, and the Belgian Croix de guerre.
[1] In early 1937, Cosimo Rennella traveled to a convention of World War I aces in Dayton, Ohio.
[1] Today, celebrations are held in Guayaquil with a replica of the biplane paraded through the streets together with that of a Kfir fighter.