AIR International – June 2018

MILITARY ITALIAN F-35A LIGHTNING II

44 | http://www.airinternational.com

3F confi guration is scheduled to start in 2018

and will be undertaken at Amendola, as the

work required almost exclusively involves

squirting the new software.

As AIR International closed for press, the

Aeronautica Militare’s F-35A fl eet comprised

nine aircraft, fi ve assigned to 13° Gruppo at

Amendola and four assigned to the 62nd

Fighter Squadron, part of the 56th Fighter

Wing based at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona,

the fl ying element of the Integrated Training

Center. Aircraft based in the United States

are formally assigned to 32° Stormo, but are

controlled by the Rappresentanza Militare

Italian (RMI, Italian Military Representation)

at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. All personnel

undergoing training in America are also

assigned to RMI.

Colonel Marzinotto confi rmed aircraft

deliveries are in line with the programme and

a further F-35A will be delivered to 32° Stormo

this year. However, it seems the Aeronautica

Militare is planning to return two aircraft from

Luke to Amendola to increase the critical

mass of aircraft assigned to 32° Stormo and

accelerate the processes required to reach the

unit’s initial operational capability.

AIR International asked Colonel Marzinotto

for a pilot’s perspective on what the F-35 is like

to fl y and operate. He said: “It is an incredible

aircraft that o ers new and innovative prospects

and is exciting for the pilot, and my use of

these superlative adjectives is truly appropriate.

The power of its processors and its data

management capacity are impressive; we are

in a new dimension. It is surprising how from

the beginning, with an aircraft that is still very

new, we have already started operations from

a higher level with respect to other platforms

that are by now mature. The gap between the

F-35 and earlier generation aircraft is very wide.

In respect of its pure performance – often

parameters that fascinate less technically aware

people – it’s a high performance aircraft that

which can pull 9g, and which, when comparing

performance in combat confi guration, i.e.

with fuel and weapons on board, is superior

to other aircraft that, to bring themselves

to our level, have to carry two or three fuel

tanks, armament and pods, all externally, with

consequent penalties in terms of performance

and increased fuel consumption.”

It’s important at this point in the story to

remind ourselves that the F-35, generally seen

fl ying in clean confi guration is already, without

external stores, a combat-ready aircraft, with

internal weapon bays, a large fuel payload and

internally mounted sensors that don’t require

any confi guration change on the ground.

Colonel Marzinotto described the F-35 as

an omni-role aircraft. He said: “This signifi es

that at any time in a fl ight it allows the pilot

to undertake any kind of role, be it air-to-

air, air-to-ground, intelligence surveillance

reconnaissance, suppression or destruction

of enemy air defences. Moreover, the

aircraft is able to perform a variety of roles

simultaneously. The challenge, therefore,

is all on the pilot, who must know how to

assimilate and manage all the information

that the aircraft o ers him, but the aircraft

comes to his aid, as the system architecture is

designed to support him in this sense.

“The immense capacity to acquire data

and its consequent fusion is processed by

the data fusion engines [computers], which

work autonomously, selecting the information

that is of most importance to the pilot at

that moment in the mission, contributing

to the overall situation awareness without

overloading the pilot with data, but presents

them to him in a way that he can exploit. The

big leap forward is information management.

For example, the pilot of an earlier generation

aircraft has the same data available, thanks

only to multiple screens, and a notional need

for six or seven pilots on board to follow and

manage them. With the F-35, it is the fusion

engines that exploit the system and [the

aircraft] requires just one pilot and a large

touchscreen display to manage.”

BELOW: Two F-35As assigned to 13°

Gruppo undergo fi nal checks before

taxiing for a mission at Amendola Air Base. 

BOTTOM LEFT: Pilot and crew chief during

a simulated scramble. Italian F-35A

Lightning IIs were fi rst assigned to QRA

duty on March 1, 2018.

All images Riccardo Niccoli