Italy (effectively) declares F-35 IOC

Production milestones, roll-outs, test flights, service introduction and other milestones.
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by Dragon029 » 07 Mar 2018, 13:01

Italy's not saying it's achieved "initial operational capability" in those terms, but this announcement states that the F-35As of 32 Stormo (32nd Wing) are now incorporated into Italy's national air defence system, meaning they'll be used in the Servizio Sorveglianza Spazio Aereo (Airspace Surveillance Service) for intercepts and at least defensive combat should the need arise.

Source: http://www.aeronautica.difesa.it/comuni ... onale.aspx

Google translation:

The F-35 aircraft of the 32nd Stormo implement the national air defense system

05/03/2018 05 Marzo 2018
Autore Magg. Leonardo Del Vecchio

In Amendola the operation of the new 5th generation weapon system supplied to the AM started

From March 1, 2018, the JSF assets of the 32nd Wing of Amendola (FG) are officially part of the National Air Defense device as they are functionally included in the Air Space Surveillance Service (SSSA), a fundamental institutional task of the AM.

The achievement of this important objective is part of the broader development of the countless operational capabilities of the F-35 weapon system. The validation of this capacity was obtained through an intense and complex training of the crews and technical staff of the Department and following numerous tests carried out with positive results in full synergy and coordination with the other Armed Forces in charge of the Air Defense.

This testifies to the wide operational versatility of the weapon system, designed to perform many types of air operations, with the unique characteristic of being able to receive and redistribute an extraordinary flow of information essential for achieving information superiority, a nodal element of the complex aerial operations.

Thanks to the implementation of this operational capability, the F-35 multi - role firearm system will make a valuable contribution in ensuring the defense of national airspace from possible threats against the country and its citizens.

The 32nd Stormo, the first Department in Europe to acquire JSF aircraft, also carries out operational, training and technical activities of Predator piloted aircraft in order to acquire and maintain the capacity to carry out national and coalition ISTAR operations. Furthermore, it provides and completes the training of the APR pilots through the MB-339 aircraft in order to ensure an adequate level of training on traditional piloted aircraft.


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by nutshell » 07 Mar 2018, 14:23

Oh my, forgot to post it.

Btw it's the official AMI website so it's real.

Atm we've the most advanced air force in the EU :mrgreen:

(I assume the brits dont have declared their f35s IOC'ed).


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by element1loop » 07 Mar 2018, 15:01

Congrats Italy! :cheers:
Accel + Alt + VLO + DAS + MDF + Radial Distance = LIFE . . . Always choose Stealth


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by vilters » 07 Mar 2018, 15:31

Congrats on a fine piece of paper.
How mant are code1?

One or both? :devil:
Because you are not going to even "try" to tell us that you can launch a flight of 4, fully armed and ready for combat, at NATO's command in let's say 15 minutes from now?


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by blindpilot » 07 Mar 2018, 17:17

vilters wrote:Congrats on a fine piece of paper.
How mant are code1?

One or both? :devil:
Because you are not going to even "try" to tell us that you can launch a flight of 4, fully armed and ready for combat, at NATO's command in let's say 15 minutes from now?


Keep up. Italy has 9 F-35A's and a F-35B and the assembly there continues with 1 each on the line. They can launch a 4 ship, even with a 50% availability rate. Now 15 Minutes? Well if you wanted to put them on alert... Yes could be done.

FWIW,
BP


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by ricnunes » 07 Mar 2018, 23:04

Congratulations to Italy indeed! :D

And I agree with nutshell -> The most advanced Air Force in the EU indeed, take that France :mrgreen:
“Active stealth” is what the ignorant nay sayers call EW and pretend like it’s new.


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by loke » 08 Mar 2018, 10:38

ROME — Italy’s commitment to the F-35 fighter jet may be in doubt, as an Italian political party which has promised to scrap the program edges closer to power.

Formed in 2009 to fight corruption and waste in politics, Five Star officials last year said they would scrap the F-35 program if they took office.

“There will be no ifs or buts about leaving the F-35 program,” Tatiana Basilio, a Five Star member of Parliament, said in May.



https://www.defensenews.com/global/euro ... ars-power/

They cannot possibly be so stupid??


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by marsavian » 08 Mar 2018, 10:47

Basilio said Italy should have opted instead to upgrade its Eurofighter aircraft to take on the strike role destined for the F-35.


It all depends on whether they can form a coalition government and that their coalition partners agree. I don't know how strongly the rest of the parties feel about F-35 but it seems like another case of Trudeauitis at play here where these politicians listen more to public critics than their paid military on defense.


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by ricnunes » 08 Mar 2018, 17:04

My take on the political situation in Italy regarding that "5 start" coalition parties and the F-35 is the following:
- They are a coalition of "populist" parties which one of its banners is to create jobs for the Italians - If they scrap the F-35 lots and lots of Italian jobs would be lost (which would contradict one of its most important banners) or did they forgot that Italy hosts a F-35 factory which builds/assembles complete F-35s?
Anyway I don't think that such thing could happen (Italy canceling the F-35) but then again the human being (actually some human beings) can be really, really stupid! :bang:
“Active stealth” is what the ignorant nay sayers call EW and pretend like it’s new.


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by hythelday » 08 Mar 2018, 17:18

Basilio said Italy should have opted instead to upgrade its Eurofighter aircraft to take on the strike role destined for the F-35


I heard that if you strap a JATO booster on, Typhoon could take off from Cavour too.

Nutshell, in "the Germans" thread you mentioned that this star party was strongly opposing B61s too, keep us updated!


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by nutshell » 09 Mar 2018, 01:44

ricnunes wrote:My take on the political situation in Italy regarding that "5 start" coalition parties and the F-35 is the following:
- They are a coalition of "populist" parties which one of its banners is to create jobs for the Italians - If they scrap the F-35 lots and lots of Italian jobs would be lost (which would contradict one of its most important banners) or did they forgot that Italy hosts a F-35 factory which builds/assembles complete F-35s?
Anyway I don't think that such thing could happen (Italy canceling the F-35) but then again the human being (actually some human beings) can be really, really stupid! :bang:


No, all the parties are actually interested in cutting the JSF program right now. The next DPEF should be around 20B and the cut would cover for it. It's the easy way.

Still wondering how that M5S meme is surviving tho(the movement won't even be elected anyway), since in reality, it's the only party that is prioritizing on getting the needed money from the reforming of public administration; which would net over 10B per year alone (so it's the real long term solution) and the re-taxation of the VLTs industry (which is a plague here evading some serious biillions thanks to the former Letta's government).

Now, Leonardo is a big company but not THAT big NS in case you didn't know, it's equally involved in the Eurofighter consortium.
So, the company would get their money one way or another. The jobs lost is sort of a non issue there.

You know, Italy don't need the F35. Italy need the founds to restart the country or else, it's facing starvation. We're not talking about some houndred of thousands of jobs here, but fu*ing tens of millions.

This is MUCH MUCH bigger than any plane in the world. Much bigger then ANYTHING you might (wrongly) know about the domestic situation of this country.

Let me put in this way, even if i'm a BIG F35 fanboy:

Joining the program was a M-I-S-T-A-K-E.
We never had the resources to commit. That was a horribly IRRESPONSIBLE act from the past administrations.
Sure, nobody could ever predict the 2011 crisis, but that was the time to at the VERY LEAST halt the acquisition.

You know, i'd love to buy me the new 488 Pista. I'd go smash people on track with it. But i can't irremediably indebt my family and the family of my children just because i want a good lap around the Nurburgring. You get it?


By the way, the Air Force really needs it and want it. Leonardo would go to the court and the repercussion for the State would be massive. Too late to stop the ball.

p.s.: You should read Casapound manifesto. Those fascists want to get out of the JSF, NATO, the EU and start different domestic projects. I was like "these dudes must be on drugs" when listening to their leader.


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by magitsu » 09 Mar 2018, 04:20

Yeah right.

You only need to take a quick look towards Aviano's nuke storage (the largest one in continental Europe) to see why at least limited F-35A purchase is vital for Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing
It would be stupid to start a domestic program for that kind of limited need. But having it there is indeed a vital security policy need, because it ensures that the US has to be committed to Italy more than most in the region. Not having them there would cost even more, since you'd need to replace that defensive asset with something of your own.

There's a real need for both nuke and carrier purposes and no other alternatives once the Tornado retires. Apart from that it was probably some kind of small bet that there could be business in it for the Italian aviation sector. They wanted one of the plants where finished F-35s come out, like Japan. Thus far it hasn't paid off, but who knows. Cutting their own order short would ensure a big write off. That plant in Cameri must have cost at least a billion extra to get. Never mind the private sector investment. "The Italian F-35 program’s production phase alone is expected to bring $15.8 billion of economic benefits to the Italian economy." https://www.f35.com/global/participatio ... ticipation
http://www.sldinfo.com/cameri-italy-and ... al-report/

This path of political folly would just lead to Italian procurement becoming similar laughing stock like Canada. A lot of fuzz, but in the end the clowns realize that there's no better alternative.
There's also 75 Tornados to replace. Italian Navy might be argued went too far by getting 29 F-35B after having 15 Harriers. But it should've been considered when building new naval platforms. It would make no sense to buy them and then not have enough planes on them. Though the Royal Navy is kind of doing something similar with QE and low F-35B numbers. :P

Italy's number isn't even that big. 131 for a country with GDP (PPP) of $2.233 trillion. Australia buys 72 with GDP (PPP) of $1.24 trillion. Norway buys 52 with GDP (PPP) of $0.405 trillion.

Basically Italy wants to be a certain sized player internationally, which means certain things with regard to keeping up necessary military capabilities.


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by loke » 09 Mar 2018, 10:57

magitsu wrote:Yeah right.

You only need to take a quick look towards Aviano's nuke storage (the largest one in continental Europe) to see why at least limited F-35A purchase is vital for Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing
It would be stupid to start a domestic program for that kind of limited need.


A lot of stupid things have happened in politics wordwide, including in Italy.

Unfortunately stupid things will happen again, it's just a question of time.

Really really stupid (and horrendous) things have not happened in Europe since the end of WW2.

I hope I am wrong and the trend towards more protectionism, nationalism/fascism will be reversed.

If not, anything can happen.


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by mixelflick » 09 Mar 2018, 14:45

This is really exciting..

I read he IOC only related to the air to air mission, but still. F-35's are rapidly proliferating around the globe, and it's only going to accelerate from here. They're in Europe. They're in the Middle and Far East. Soon, they'll be in NH LOL.

This wouldn't have been possible with the F-22 due to export bans, so in retrospect going with the F-35 was the right decision. I think we all agree we could use another 200 Raptors, but it is what it is. The F-35 will soon be seeing combat (somewhere, probably the Middle East) and it's going to be REAL interesting when it bumps up against Russian (or export) SU-30's, SU-35's etc. If it goes the way we all think, it'll be the death of Russian export airframes.

That event (F-35 downs a Flanker) would do more to hurt the Russian (air) defense industry more than any other. It may be that the only country ordering more Flankers in the future is... Russia.


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by nutshell » 09 Mar 2018, 14:52

magitsu wrote:Yeah right.

You only need to take a quick look towards Aviano's nuke storage (the largest one in continental Europe) to see why at least limited F-35A purchase is vital for Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing
It would be stupid to start a domestic program for that kind of limited need. But having it there is indeed a vital security policy need, because it ensures that the US has to be committed to Italy more than most in the region. Not having them there would cost even more, since you'd need to replace that defensive asset with something of your own.

There's a real need for both nuke and carrier purposes and no other alternatives once the Tornado retires. Apart from that it was probably some kind of small bet that there could be business in it for the Italian aviation sector. They wanted one of the plants where finished F-35s come out, like Japan. Thus far it hasn't paid off, but who knows. Cutting their own order short would ensure a big write off. That plant in Cameri must have cost at least a billion extra to get. Never mind the private sector investment. "The Italian F-35 program’s production phase alone is expected to bring $15.8 billion of economic benefits to the Italian economy." https://www.f35.com/global/participatio ... ticipation
http://www.sldinfo.com/cameri-italy-and ... al-report/

This path of political folly would just lead to Italian procurement becoming similar laughing stock like Canada. A lot of fuzz, but in the end the clowns realize that there's no better alternative.
There's also 75 Tornados to replace. Italian Navy might be argued went too far by getting 29 F-35B after having 15 Harriers. But it should've been considered when building new naval platforms. It would make no sense to buy them and then not have enough planes on them. Though the Royal Navy is kind of doing something similar with QE and low F-35B numbers. :P

Italy's number isn't even that big. 131 for a country with GDP (PPP) of $2.233 trillion. Australia buys 72 with GDP (PPP) of $1.24 trillion. Norway buys 52 with GDP (PPP) of $0.405 trillion.

Basically Italy wants to be a certain sized player internationally, which means certain things with regard to keeping up necessary military capabilities.


You dont need to give me numbers to state the obvious: technically speaking the winged services are in dire need of the F35.

Still, you dont expect Albania or Moldavia or whatever to buy a 5th gen plane. They have no money.
Italy is in THAT position.
Cannot be any easier than this.

The economic benefit is a moot point. Already said the (disastrous) the reason.


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