Sat, Apr 26, 2008
Italian Exercise Demonstrates New Fighter's Capabilities
The 2008 edition of "Spring Flag", the most important annual
exercise of the Italian Air Force, was hosted by 9o Gruppo and XII
Gruppo, with their Eurofighter Typhoons taking the lead in the Air
Dominance role.
Running from April 4-16, the NATO-organised complex hypothetical
scenario featured two combat forces in a "good versus bad" struggle
to achieve their operational objectives. All aircraft were fitted
with flight recording instrumentation providing the Command and
Control teams with real time data monitoring all manoeuvres carried
out by each aircraft during the exercise. This information is then
used by the exercise co-ordinators for the improvement of aircrew
and ground crew training, as well as offering scope for developing
the overall organisation of the exercise which, in reality, are the
ultimate aims in this kind of operation.
The Spring Flag exercise is planned and executed to verify the
Air Force's deployment capability. Italian officials say the
Typhoons performed remarkably well, building on the successes of
recent deployments to the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain, and
demonstrating how the aircraft, although still making its first
forays into frontline service, already combines excellent
operational reliability with a logistics support capability to
maintain the aircraft even in the most complex scenarios.
The operations during the exercise have focused on air defence
and ground attack, carried out using Eurofighter Typhoons and
Tornados versus F-16s and F-18s. Also involved were Italian AMX
jets, the so-called "Slow Mover Interception" force of Aermacchi
MB-339CDs, and AgustaWestland HH-3F helicopters.
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