As early as 1913 Caproni, then aged 27, had said during an interview for the Italian sports newspaper "La Gazzetta dello Sport" that "aircraft with a capacity of one hundred and more passengers" would soon become a reality. It was after the war, however, that (besides converting some of his large wartime bombers into airliners) Caproni began designing a huge and ambitious passenger flying boat; he first took out a patent on a design of this kind on February 6, 1919.